The Blessed Blog

10 Questions with Deacon Rich Klish

Both clergy and married, a servant of the Church with a career in IT, the Deaconate is a mixed bag of roles and responsibilities. And yet every deacon’s path is a little different than another’s. He came to Florida for the weather, and stayed for the Parish and people he found at St. John XXIII. Deacon Rich Klish is an asset to our Pastoral Team, and we’re forever grateful for the work he does. We sat down with him to learn a little more about where’s he from, what he does, and how he got here. This is what he said.

Damian: So tell me where you’re from and what you were doing there?
Deacon Rich: Well I’m originally from the Archdiocese of St. Paul/Minneapolis. We’re originally from Cleveland, OH and I was ordained in the 70’s, but I wasn’t a deacon for the Archdiocese until the year 2000. I served in a Parish there for 12 years, and for the last 10 of those years, I served in a marriage tribunal as a judge. A tribunal handles annulments. My wife and I moved down here in September of 2012, and it was basically the weather that got us here.

DH: It does that to a lot of people. So how did you make your living up there?
DRK: I worked in information technology – with computers. I started out as a computer programmer, and then I became a project manager. I was a project manager for about 20 some odd years. In 2002 I got laid off, and being ordained a couple years before that, I thought about maybe working for the Church full-time. I was looking around for other jobs in IT, but felt called and then made that transition to the Church.

DH: What drew you to the marriage tribunal position and what did that vocation entail?
DRK: The job involved working with individuals on their cases and serving as a judge. My wife and I were involved in various marriage ministries for a number of years. We led some Marriage Encounters and were involved in some other marriage enrichment programs, so my work was more of the flipside of that. These were marriages that had ended in divorce, but I had a lot of background in marriage, so the skillset was there. I did not have a canon law degree, but I got what was called an “indult” – or a special exception – so I was able to serve.

DH: So was that a typical thing for a deacon, or was that a specialized role for the vocation?
DRK: I would call that a specialty. Most deacons don’t work for the Church full-time. Most are actually volunteers and work out in the field doing other things. There were 12 people in my class, and of those, 4 went to work for the Church and the other 8 stayed in civil employment. We are actually clergy. The sacrament of Holy Orders has 3 different types. There’s the Order of the Bishop, of the Priest, and the Order of the Deacon. The orientation of the deacon is towards service. The three roles of the deacon are Service, Word, and Sacrament. So part of role can be sacraments – baptisms and weddings. Deacons can preach on Sundays – in most dioceses. They can serve as teachers, and the other role of the deacon is service. In the Acts of the Apostles they describe ordaining 7 men to “serve at the table”, to relieve the Apostles of some of their tasks. So the role of the deacon can involve things like working in a soup kitchen, social justice, visiting the sick in the hospital, prison ministry, and those types of things.

DH: So back on the topic of annulment, what does it take to resolve a marriage that should have never happened?
DRK: The annulment process is a legal process. It’s not purely pastoral. So Catholics that have a marriage end in divorce have a right to have their marriage reviewed. And we listen to their story. We start out with the assumption that the marriage was valid. We don’t automatically grant their annulments. My job was to listen to their stories, and serve as a judge on their case. I found it rewarding, but I found that a marriage that ends in divorce is generally the most painful and difficult parts of a person’s life. And even though it’s not meant to be a healing process, it can serve as that. It’s not meant to be an adversarial process either, it’s meant to be a process of finding out the truth about the marriage. But in working with people, I’ve found that they come to a better understanding of what happened in their marriage, and they find ways to grow through it and learn how to be stronger, and more faith-filled people. So that’s the good part.

DH: And what typically goes wrong in a marriage that would have it end in divorce?
DRK: I think that – and this is very simplistic – there are two types of cases, broadly speaking. The first is the marriage that breaks down over a number of years, simply because the husband and wife don’t do enough to feed the marriage. They become concerned with children, careers, hobbies, other relatives, what have you, and over the years – what started out so strong at the altar – it breaks down and deteriorates. The other type of marriage is the one that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. There can be issues of mental health, chemical dependency… There can be a marriage because of a pregnancy; grossly immature people marrying each other. Those you can tell from the jump aren’t going to work, generally break down pretty quickly because one or both of the parties are either not ready for marriage, or they’re just not compatible.

DH: Give me the definition of “grossly immature”.
DRK: A couple examples would be; a chemically dependent person; a person who can’t hold a job; a person who can’t manage money. And it’s always a judgment call. A lot of times there’s an attachment to it, like narcissism, or depression, or dependency. Those are some examples.

DH: So you almost have to do a psychiatric assessment on the person during this process, right?
DRK: Yes, when there’s psychological evidence during the study, we’ll submit that to a professional. Either a counselor, a chemical dependency doctor or some kind of professional will give their assessment to the court.

DH: Okay, so what are your plans for the future? Do you want to stick with annulments or take another direction?
DRK: Well, here in the Diocese of Venice, I’m not working in the tribunal. I’m assisting some people with their cases, but I’ve also been working on the emergency assistance team, the tuition assistance team, visiting Manor Care, and on Mondays, my wife and I visit Gulf Coast to take the Eucharist to people in the hospital. And also on Mondays, I’ve been serving during the Mass and doing a homily. I also work in marriage enrichment and on the Faith Alive team.

DH: So only those seven ministries? Okay, so at its core, what is the most fulfilling part of being a deacon?
DRK: It has to be the service aspect of it – either working in a group or with individuals. Working on the Family Movie Night team is a lot of fun, and that falls under marriage enrichment too.

DH: So tell me more about your life.
DRK: Well I’m married with three adult daughters. My wife and I have been married for about 45 years. My wife loves this Parish and is involved in a group called Craftie Ladies. We live about 10 minutes away in Botanica Lakes, and we enjoy… Florida!

DH: Don’t we all! Alright well thanks for sitting down with me and we’ll see you around.
DRK: Thank you.

Every Child’s Wish | Father’s Day

Prayer isn’t a verse of words you repeat. It is how you live your life… Neither is communication a conversation between two people. You communicate by the actions you take, and in the way you live. –Father Paul Charbonneau

Every man wants to be the ideal father, and every child wants to have the perfect dad – but perfect is impossible. So what would a great father look like? My dad worked hard, but made time for us. He was a great provider, but neither spoiled us, nor used material things as bargaining chips for getting his way. In fact, looking back, there’s no telling what his way might have been – it was all about making his family happy. My father never forgot that his children were going to mimic him in adulthood, and be attracted to people like him as spouses and friends… And that’s what I’m most grateful for – his love and sense of responsibility. Without those two things, there’s no telling what path life may have taken – but with those things – we can have peace, happiness and joy in our lives.

And that’s sort of the gist of the interview with father and son – Jack and Rich Byrnes. At one point, Rich explains that he’s not too concerned with his (adult) children’s careers, but he’s proud of the people they’ve become. Unlike many in our world today, he cares less for the exterior of their lives and more about their internal character. In any walk of life, God can use us to help people, and touch people’s lives in a way that brings them closer to God. And in that way, Rich and Jack have been successful – not perfect – but they laid the path for their children, who will one day teach their children, who will then, one day teach their children…

Interview with Jack & Rich Byrnes

DH: We’re here to talk about what it is to be a father. Tell me, each one of you, what you remember most about your father growing up.
Jack Byrnes: Well, my father was a good role model. He worked many, many years with the railroads and I just took after him as I grew up. I think I’ve passed that on to Rich and my other two sons.

DH: What does it mean when you say he was a good role model?
JB: Well, he was honest and loyal and had all of the Boy Scout-type of attributes. He was loyal to the Church and spent a lot of time in the Church. That’s what we try to do in our family.
RB: I would say the same thing. I think of the amount of time that dad would spend with us. He worked very hard, but also he would take time to spend with us on weekends taking us on lacrosse trips or to hockey games.

DH: So you guys grew up up north? They didn’t have lacrosse here back then. Where did you grow up and what was that like?
Rich Byrnes: My job took me around the country and Rich was born in Sacramento. We moved to Maryland, then to Canada and back to Columbus, Ohio. So we’ve been around. I don’t think they liked it, my family, when we pulled up stakes, but looking back I think it was a good experience – growing up to see different parts of the country and Canada.
RB: And we learned how to adapt to new environments.
JB: And now he’s about to embark on another adventure.

DH: So you’re moving to Tennessee. I grew up in Tennessee. Tell me what you think, either one of you. What’s the most important part of being a father?
RB: I think the main thing is passing on the values that I learned growing up. My kids are grown now. They’re 24 and 26. As a younger parent you’re thinking, I want them to be good kids. But now I’m happy that they’ve grown into great adults and I’m very proud of both of them and what they’ve become. Not as much with their careers – but with who they are as people. And I think that’s the main focus. It’s understanding that it’s who they have become as people that is important. They both have a great faith life and they’re both very helping individuals. My daughter is a kindergarten teacher and my son spends a lot of time with his church in the music ministry. He does a lot of volunteer work in the community. Being a parent and seeing your kids be able to do that in life – that’s what makes it all worth it.

DH: What can kids get only from a father? Like, what kind of masculine characteristics do you bring to the vocation of fatherhood that a woman just cannot?
RB: Dad was the disciplinarian in the family where my mother was more of a comfort blanket to our whole family. My dad was the one from whom you really knew right from wrong. It’s kind of like the priests we have here. They guide you right from wrong. Dad used to crack a belt. He never used it but…

DH: Just that sound, the leather belt, is scary!
RB: Yes, we would get real quiet when we heard the belt crack.

DH: So Jack, did your kids get into mischief? How many kids did you have?
JB: Four.

DH: Were they just garden variety mischievous or did some of them demonstrate serious character defects?
JB: Hah! Well, we tried to keep them busy. That’s the main thing. They played football and lacrosse. Rich was third baseman on the little league team. You keep them busy and out of trouble that way. I’ll give most of the credit to my wife for how they turned out.

DH: You probably didn’t have all boys.
JB: No. I have one daughter.

DH: And Rich, you have a son and a daughter, right?
RB: Right.

DH: What are the differences between raising a boy and a girl?
RB: You have to listen a lot more with a girl. (Laughter)
JB: Well, the girl tends to be impatient as we chase the guys doing their athletics. If they’re on a traveling team the girls have to go along, and not necessarily enjoy it… but she was outnumbered in our case. Three to one.
RB: I don’t know since we had a boy and a girl if it was gender based, as much as it was their individual interests and needs. I think throughout their time growing up, just spending time with whatever their interests were was important. At one time my daughter was a dancer and so we supported that, but then in high school she decided she wanted to play lacrosse, just out of the blue. And so I went from one day never having played sports with my daughter, to spending the entire summer practicing, practicing, practicing. So that was one of my memories, spending that time with her. With my son, he was into sports and music and I was as well. The memory that I have recently is just recording music with him. Those are the memories that will never fade.

DH: What was it like seeing your daughter transition from dancing, which is about grace and beauty, to a blood sport like lacrosse? Sometimes when you watch girls lacrosse, you’re like SCARED for them, right?
RB: Oh yeah. In one of these practices she didn’t have her mask on and the ball missed her stick and bloodied her lip, and I just couldn’t believe it had happened. There she was with a big fat lip and blood gushing out. I’m thinking, what did I get her into this for? I think it’s all in how you adapt to their changes. They’re going to change through life. My daughter early on was more introverted. When she was going into middle school, there was a life teen program at our church in Pittsburgh. I had never thought about being part of the music ministry before, but it was in 2001 that I joined the music ministry and have done it ever since. But my thinking was that I want the kids to get closer to Christ and they both have benefited from that. All of the volunteer work in the youth group programs that they got involved in was a result of that. I didn’t do a lot of that myself growing up, but setting that example, now I see my son is playing music at his church. He’s 24 and it’s kind of neat to see them follow your footsteps.

DH: Jack, you had three boys. Did they just beat each other up mercilessly or did they get along?
RB: (Laughter) It was good to be the biggest of the three – and the youngest!
JB: No. They were all individuals and they complemented one another. They all played sometimes on the same team, like lacrosse, in Ohio. There was competition but I think they all had their own paths. Some were better than others in certain sports but they weren’t too competitive among themselves.

DH: So that was probably a break for you. So you guys are still pretty close and that’s a good thing. Sort of at a deeper level, you see a lot of times families grow apart and whatever mistakes a parent makes with a kid, that kid makes them with their kid. But it sounds like you guys really did it right and you knew how to love your kids. For parents who are at a loss, how would you advise anyone on the best way to show your children you love them, and ensure they have that instilled in them for when they go forward to have their own kids?
JB: One thing that comes to mind is when Rich was out of work in January. I invited him to join me each morning and walk through the prayer or memorial garden and say the Rosary. So we’ve had about four months of being together each morning before Mass. It’s something I’ll miss – not having him with me. But I hope he continues to do it in his new occupation: to do it on his own… I’ll be thinking of him.

DH: And you’re going to Tennessee to do what?
RB: Director of Transportation for Nike.

DH: So how about you Rich, how do you show your kids you love them or how would you tell other parents or new parents with young children the best way to be patient, loving, kind?
RB: I think a lot of it is faith-based. And I think it’s having a strong faith. And my faith in the last three to four months has been built stronger than ever. You think at certain times in your life, well, this is “it” and what I have learned is that there isn’t any finish line in life or after life. You just have to keep on working at things. I try to instill that in the kids. My daughter is going to be moving and she doesn’t even have a job, but she’s moving to Ohio and looking for a teaching job. She doesn’t know what lies ahead but she has good faith and good values, and so she isn’t concerned about what lies ahead because of that. She knows that my son is up there and, like you said, we have a good, tight family and they’re going to help each other out when she gets there. Like I said, in the last three months, through the Church and through saying the Rosary every morning and daily Mass, these are the things that I never would have thought of doing because I was so busy with work. Another great opportunity is the Men’s Gospel Forum on Monday mornings. People had invited me to that many times and I was thinking – oh, that’s not what I’m all about, and now that we’ve both been doing that together for the last six weeks, I’m thinking – the whole Church should be here! All of the men should be here. You can see so many people at different points in their faith. Some people are very knowledgeable about the Bible and other people are very knowledgeable about how to raise a family. It’s just a great way to share. That’s helped me to share with my wife and my kids thoughts that I wouldn’t have normally talked about with them. I think it is important to be a good communicator. Let them know how you feel. Let them know that you love them – and I think they will pass that on to their families.

DH: So, last question for both of you or each of you, what’s been the biggest challenge of fatherhood?
JB: Well, I guess I was adventurous and when there were changes in my career and opportunities in different states, it was difficult to know if I would be successful, but I was a risk taker and it seems like it has turned out pretty well. But like Rich, he’s going to a new job and I’m sure he’s somewhat apprehensive as to whether he’ll succeed. But I think most people are like that when they go to a new situation, and that’s what I was concerned with, that my family would prosper from the change.
RB: I think mine would be, in our family we made the decision early on that my wife would stay home with the kids so I have always had that pressure – having a job and continuing to move on and to move ahead with my work to support the family. So I think that was a big challenge but I think one of the things I wasn’t ready for was having newborn kids and dealing with all of that. That’s a big life changer. When that happened, my dad told me “now you understand what responsibility is all about”. And you take a different attitude towards work. When you’re a young parent, because you say OK, you thought you knew what responsibility was before, now you have a whole family to feed and you really learn that.
JB: I’d like to say one thing that has impressed me about this guy (Rich). He’s a musician and he’d rather be doing that than working, but… he wrote a song. He writes a lot of songs, but he wrote a song about me.
RB: It’s called, What would my dad do? I actually wrote it before the whole “What Would Jesus Do” thing. (Laughter)

DH: So they got that idea from you?
JB: It’s a great song.
RB: I wrote it for a birthday party that he had 27 years ago.
JB: Who’s counting?
RB: I’ll send you the lyrics for that because it really sums up what a father is and when you lie awake at night, trying to decide which direction to proceed I fall down on my knees and figure out “what would my dad do?” I think that’s what it’s all about – being the foundation for the family, being the cornerstone for the family and that’s what this guy was to me and to our whole family growing up. That’s why I wrote the song.

DH: I can identify with that because it’s hard when you’re young and single and selfish but just growing up, my dad is still one of my heros – the selflessness. You can’t even wrap your head around it but he always did the right, loyal thing. Put everybody else first, and so I get that. So thanks for talking to me and Happy Father’s Day. Good luck in Tennessee.

The Gifts We’ve Been Given Through Pentecost

After Easter Sunday, Christmas is the second-greatest feast in the Christian liturgical calendar, but Pentecost Sunday is not far behind. Coming 50 days after Easter and ten days after the Ascension of Our Lord, Pentecost marks the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. For that reason, it is often called the “the birthday of the Church.”

Wisdom is one of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3. They are present in their fullness in Jesus Christ, Whom Isaiah foretold (Isaiah 11:1), but they are available to all Christians who are in a state of grace. We receive the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit when we are infused with sanctifying grace, the life of God within us—as, for example, when we receive a sacrament worthily. As the current Catechism of the Catholic Church (para. 1831) notes, “They complete and perfect the virtues of those who receive them.”
The First and Highest Gift of the Holy Spirit: Wisdom is the perfection of faith. As Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., notes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, “Where faith is a simple knowledge of the articles of Christian belief, wisdom goes on to a certain divine penetration of the truths themselves.” The better we understand those truths, the more we value them properly. Thus wisdom, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, “by detaching us from the world, makes us relish and love only the things of heaven.” Through wisdom, we judge the things of the world in light of the highest end of man—the contemplation of God.

The Application of Wisdom: Such detachment, however, is not the same as renunciation of the world—far from it. Rather, wisdom helps us to love the world properly, as the creation of God, rather than for its own sake. The material world, though fallen as a result of the sin of Adam and Eve, is still worthy of our love; we simply need to see it in the proper light, and wisdom allows us to do so. Knowing the proper ordering of the material and spiritual worlds through wisdom, we can more easily bear the burdens of this life and respond to our fellow man with charity and patience.

2nd Gift: Understanding

Understanding is the second of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3, behind only wisdom. It differs from wisdom in that wisdom is the desire to contemplate the things of God, while understanding allows us, as Fr. John A. Hardon writes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, to “penetrate to the very core of revealed truths.” This doesn’t mean that we can come to understand, say, the Trinity the way that we might a mathematical equation, but that we become certain of the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. Such certitude moves beyond faith, which “merely assents to what God has revealed.”

Understanding in Practice: Once we become convinced through understanding of the truths of the Faith, we can also draw conclusions from those truths and arrive at a further understanding of man’s relation to God and his role in the world. Understanding rises above natural reason, which is concerned only with the things we can sense in the world around us. Thus, understanding is both speculative—concerned with intellectual knowledge—and practical, because it can help us to order the actions of our lives toward our final end, which is God. Through understanding, we see the world and our life within it in the larger context of the eternal law and the relation of our souls to God.

3rd Gift: Counsel

Counsel, the third of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3, is the perfection of the cardinal virtue of prudence. While prudence, like all the cardinal virtues, can be practiced by anyone, whether in a state of grace or not, it can take on a supernatural dimension through sanctifying grace. Counsel is the fruit of this supernatural prudence. Like prudence, counsel allows us to judge rightly what we should do in a particular circumstance. It goes beyond prudence, though, in allowing such judgments to be made promptly, “as by a sort of supernatural intuition,” as Fr. John A. Hardon writes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary. When we are infused with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as if by instinct.

Counsel in Practice: Counsel builds on both wisdom, which allows us to judge the things of the world in light of our final end, and understanding, which helps us to penetrate to the very core of the mysteries of our faith. “With the gift of counsel, the Holy Spirit speaks, as it were, to the heart and in an instant enlightens a person what to do,” writes Father Hardon. It is the gift that allows us as Christians to be assured that we will act correctly in times of trouble and trial. Through counsel, we can speak without fear in defense of the Christian Faith. Thus, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, counsel “enables us to see and choose correctly what will help most to the glory of God and our own salvation.”

4th Gift: Fortitude

Fortitude is one of the four cardinal virtues. As such, it can be practiced by anyone, since, unlike the theological virtues, the cardinal virtues are not, in themselves, the gifts of God through grace but the outgrowth of habit. Fortitude is commonly called courage, but it is different from what much of what we think of as courage today. Fortitude is always reasoned and reasonable; the person exercising fortitude is willing to put himself in danger if necessary, but he does not seek danger for danger’s sake.

The Third of the Cardinal Virtues: St. Thomas Aquinas ranked fortitude as the third of the cardinal virtues, because it serves prudence and justice, the higher virtues. Fortitude is the virtue that allows us to overcome fear and to remain steady in our will in the face of obstacles. Prudence and justice are the virtues through which we decide what needs to be done; fortitude gives us the strength to do it.

What Fortitude Is Not: Fortitude is not foolhardiness or rashness, “rushing in where angels fear to tread.” Indeed, part of the virtue of fortitude, as Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., notes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, is the “curbing of recklessness.” Putting our bodies or lives in danger when it is not necessary is not fortitude but foolishness.

5th Gift: Knowledge

Knowledge is the fifth of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3. Like wisdom, knowledge perfects the theological virtue of faith. The aims of knowledge and wisdom are different, however. Whereas wisdom helps us to penetrate divine truth and prepares us to judge all things according to that truth, knowledge gives us that ability to judge. As Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., writes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, “The object of this gift is the whole spectrum of created things insofar as they lead one to God.”

The Application of Knowledge: Knowledge allows us to see the circumstances of our life as God sees them, albeit in a more limited way, since we are limited by our human nature. Through the exercise of knowledge, we can ascertain God’s purpose in our lives and His reason for placing us in our particular circumstances. As Father Hardon notes, knowledge is sometimes called “the science of the saints,” because “it enables those who have the gift to discern easily and effectively between the impulses of temptation and the inspirations of grace.” Judging all things in the light of divine truth, we can more easily distinguish between the promptings of God and the subtle wiles of the devil.

6th Gift: Piety

When we are infused with the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3, we respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit as if by instinct, the way that Christ Himself would. Perhaps in none of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is this instinctual response more obvious than in piety. While wisdom and knowledge perfect the theological virtue of faith, piety perfects religion, which, as Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J., notes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, is “The moral virtue by which a person is disposed to render to God the worship and service he deserves.” Far from being a drudgery, worship should be an act of love, and piety is the instinctive affection for God that makes us desire to render worship to Him, just as we voluntarily honor our parents.

Piety in Practice: Piety, Father Hardon notes, arises “not so much from a studied effort or acquired habit as from a supernatural communication conferred by the Holy Spirit.” People sometimes say that “piety demands it,” which usually means that they feel compelled to do something that they don’t want to do. True piety, however, makes no such demands but instills in us a desire always to do that which is pleasing to God (and, by extension, that which is pleasing to those who serve God in their own lives).

7th Gift: Fear of the Lord

Fear of the Lord is the last of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit enumerated in Isaiah 11:2-3. The gift of the fear of the Lord, Fr. John A. Hardon notes in his Modern Catholic Dictionary, confirms the theological virtue of hope. We often think of hope and fear as mutually exclusive, but the fear of the Lord is the desire not to offend Him, and the certainty that He will give us the grace necessary to keep from doing so. It is that certainty that gives us hope.

The fear of the Lord is like the respect we have for our parents. We do not wish to offend them, but we also do not live in fear of them, in the sense of being frightened. What the Fear of the Lord Is Not: In the same way, Father Hardon notes, “The fear of the Lord is not servile but filial.” In other words, it is not a fear of punishment, but a desire not to offend God that parallels our desire not to offend our parents.

Even so, many people misunderstand the fear of the Lord. Recalling the verse that “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” they think that the fear of the Lord is something that is good to have when you first start out as a Christian, but that you should grow beyond it. That is not the case; rather, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because it is one of the foundations of our religious life, just as the desire to do what our parents wish us to do should remain with us our entire lives.

Watch Father Bob’s reflections on Pentecost in this week’s edition of The 23rd Times. Aren’t getting the news? Make sure you do by signing up on our website www.johnxxiii.net Go to the bottom of any page and fill in your email. You’ll receive all the great stories and news from your favorite Parish!

The Piano Story Every Parishioner Should Hear

The piano was made and sold to a dealer in Cincinnati, OH in 1936. That dealer sold the piano to a woman named Gladys Gollahon in 1938. Gladys was a pianist who could neither read nor write music. She played by sound. This piano was sold to her, a baby grand piano, and was placed in her home in a suburb of Cincinnati.

Fast forward to 1949, and Gladys is a lounge pianist playing at the Sinton Hotel. Her husband, a bus driver for the Cincinnati City Transit Authority, was transferred to Chicago – we speculate to take part in the ‘Bus Driver Rodeo’ – but that’s just a guess. In any event, they were in a hotel in Chicago, and Mrs. Gollahon could not sleep. Words were dancing in her head, and they would not subside. She finally just got up, sat down at a desk and wrote out the lyrics to a song we would know today as Dear Lady of Fatima. She put the paper in her purse and went back to bed, and slept soundly.

Listen to the MP3 of the interview here.

A month or so later, back home in Cincinnati, the same thing happened – but this time, it was a tune, not lyrics, and so she awoke, sat at her piano and played it. As she played it, she realized that the lyrics she’d written in the hotel in Chicago went with this tune. She got them from her purse, she played them, and sings. They did go together! As she looked up from her keys, before her laid blank, lined music paper – and for the first time in her life, she sat there and wrote the lyrics and music to the song that would later become a radio sensation (unheard of at the time for religious music). She went back to bed.

The next morning there was a knock at her door. She answered it, and there stood a man dressed in all white, with 2 dozen roses. He hands her the roses – no card, no anything – and simply says ‘thank you’. She took the roses, put them in a vase, and placed them on her piano. As she did so, she looked down and saw the music she’d written in the middle of the night. Startled, she called her best friend, Helen Hackett Rothley. Helen was my wife’s mother, and she was an accomplished pianist. She’d studied music at Wittenberg University in Sprinfield, OH. She came over to check out the sheet music. She could read and play the music that Gladys had somehow written. These two Irish ladies, sitting there, listening to this music, were convinced the Blessed Mother had written this song through Gladys.

The song would not stop there. Gladys decided to record the song herself. She gathered some neighbor girls to her home, played the song while they sang, and recorded it on a tape. She took it to a disc jockey downtown Cincinnati named Bill Dawes. He had a show from noon to 6PM every day, but he refused to play her song – even though they were friends – he refused to play it. He said the low quality tape and the genre (religious) was not in line with his standards. He said no at 1:00. He said no at 2:00. He said no at 3:00. He said no at 4:00. Finally, at 5:00, she had convinced him to play it. He played it with a disclaimer, apologizing to his audience for the quality of the recording, etc.

The story goes, after he played it, the switchboard at WSAI lit up like a Christmas Tree. Overburdened with calls, no one was against hearing it. People demanded it over and over again.

On one of these days, the president of the Robbins Music Company happened to be in town. In those days, Cincinnati was like Nashville. There was a just a lot of music happening and stars originating from the city – Patty Page, Doris Day.. it was like the music capital of the world. He’d heard about this song and heard about the commotion.

He talked to Bill Dawes, found out who Gladys was, went out to her house and signed her to a contract. He agreed to publish the song, promote and get different people to record it. And he did. He got: Tony Bennett, Andy Williams, Kitty Callan, The Four Lads, and many others. I actually have a disc of Gladys commenting on their recording of her songs!

The song, in 1950, rose to #6 on the Hit Parade. A song – about Our Lady of Fatima, at #6 on the Hit Parade! This caused some degree of interest around the country. Mrs. Gollahon was written up in Time Magazine – the same story I’m telling you now – was written in Time. She was invited to New York to appear on “Toast of the Town’ with a guy named Ed Sullivan.

She became a little bit famous in Cincinnati and so she, her husband and son, moved out of their house to the outskirts of town. (Sidenote: Gladys’ son was the first person to be shot down in the Vietnam War.) When they moved, they did so without a lot of thought, and discovered their piano – The Blessed Mother’s Piano – wouldn’t fit up the elevator to their new quarters! So she gave the piano to my wife’s mother. This would have been in the 50’s. Once per week, Mrs. Rothley would have people over to pray the Rosary, and never did they leave without singing the song to the tune of that piano.

In 1963, Margie and I got married, and in 1964 we moved back to Ohio from St. Louis. One day we were visiting Mrs. Rothley and the subject of the piano came up. She’d mentioned that it was grossly out of tune, and how she’d been unable to find anyone who could tune it. Being the new son-in-law and wanting to know everything, I said I knew a guy who could do it. His name was Frank Hennessy, and he lived in Springfield where he worked for the Morelli Music Company. I grew up with him and knew there wasn’t a piano he couldn’t tune.
So he went to the house in Cincinnati and tuned it up. Frank relayed to us how valuable this Vose piano was, and how if it ever needed tuning in the future, he wanted to be the one to do it. This was 1964, and it was the first time I’d ever heard this story. Mrs. Rothley told it to Frank, and that was part of the reason he insisted on being the one to tune it. Well, my kids came into the world and they would go bang on it like kids do, and it came into a state of disrepair.

Time passed, and Mrs. Rothley eventually had to be admitted to an Alzheimer’s unit when her health began to fail. And so her house and most everything in it became my wife and her sister’s property through a trust we’d established. So the piano became part of our existence. This was right around the time that this parish was being established.

One night I had a dream, and in it I received the message that this piano was supposed to be at our Church. I told Father Sullivan about this, and after relaying the story to him – he thought about it for about 5 seconds – he said ‘bring it down’. My brother-in-law, an accomplished pianist, gave me the name of a shipping company that eventually got it here. The parish administrator at the time, through no fault of her own, had a bunch of people look at it over the course of a month with the purpose of getting it restored and tuned. Every one of them said it was as piece of junk and needed to be thrown out. None of them knew how to tune it anyhow, as it was a Vose piano. I told her I might know someone.

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t think of how to find Frank Hennessy. There was probably an easy way – call his old high school or something – but it didn’t come to me. Again, one night in a dream, I got a message that I should call Jim Paxson – another guy I grew up with – and he would know. The next day I called him and asked him if he knew where Hennessy was, and he replied “Oh, well, he’s probably in Terre Haute, IN by now.” I asked why that would be, and he told me that Hennessy was on his way over to play golf with Jim.

I asked where he lived and what he did. He said, “He lived in Columbia, MO and owns the Hennessy Music Company, which restores old pianos.” I laughed and told Jim to have Frank call me.
When Frank called, I told him about the mass consensus calling our piano a piece of junk and he immediately replied “Not that piano. They just don’t know how to tune it. Ship it to me.” I explained to him how I’d just spent $5,000 shipping to Florida and wasn’t about to spend that much to ship it up there only to hear how he couldn’t make it happen. He said he would send his truck to get it – and he did!

He looked at it and said it could be tuned, but that the wood was in really bad shape. At the time, there were only two places in the world where the wood could be restored. One was a city in – at the time – Czechoslovakia, and the other was in Juarez, Mexico. He told me he’d ship it to Juarez, have it back in 3-4 weeks, tune it up and ship it back to Florida. He told me he’d do it at cost for the Blessed Mother. So I said okay.

Four weeks went by, no news about the piano. Eight weeks went by, still no news. Finally I called him and asked what was going on. He said, “Tom, they won’t answer my calls. They won’t respond to my letters. I just can’t get a hold of them!” I asked him if he knew anything about what was going on. He knew nothing. They responded to nothing.

Long story short, 18 months later Hennessy gets a call telling him the piano would be returned to him the next day. When the truck driver got to Frank’s place, he asked him what the deal was – why so long? The driver explained that Hurricane Katrina had sent an undetermined number of pianos to this company, and his had been set aside while they all dried out and waited to be restored.

So Frank put the harp back in it, tuned it and shipped it back. Some more time passed and after short deliberation, Father Sullivan picked August 6, 2006. At the time, I had no idea that that date was Father Sullivan’s birthday, but he told me he wanted more of the history of the piano, and that’s when the parish administrator at the time called Frank Hennessy to get the full story.

This is when we found out the harp (inside the piano) was poured and cast in December of 1935 in Springfield, OH – the same month, year and city of my birth! It was poured at the Wickam Piano Company. In that year, 1935, Wickam was located one and a half blocks from where I was born and raised. The piano also had a serial number attached to it from Worchester, MA, dated August 6, 1936 – the same EXACT date, year and city in which Father Sullivan was born!

There is just too much coincidence here. I believe that this piano was picked by the Blessed Mother to be at this Church…. And that’s the story.

Be One of Our Helping Hands

Helping Hands, a program developed by Catholic Relief Services and Stop Hunger Now, is a high-energy, hands-on way for Catholics in the U.S. to tackle hunger around the world. During an event, volunteers package nutritious meals for people in Burkina Faso suffering from food shortages and famine. CRS educates volunteers about the people and country they are helping, ships the meals and provides skills training and other long-term programs that help break the cycle of hunger.

We are organizing a local food-packaging event, and we need your help. In order to host this event, we need 80 people to help work on the assembly line to package the food. The parish is helping along, with my school to help raise the money.

This is a fun, educational, and simple project that has a major impact. We will be packaging 10,000 meals, and each meal serves 6 people. That is 60,000 people being fed in developing countries. We need volunteers on the day of the event to come and help package the food. The 7th and 8th grade class will be going to Blessed Pope John XXIII parish to help package the food. But in order to accomplish this goal, I need your help. The event will take place at St. John XXIII on May 20. We plan on starting at 9:00 am.

If you have any questions concerning the event you can contact me at: isabella.m.rodriguez@hotmail.com

The Interview with Isabella

DH: Tell me about this effort you’re making.
IR: It’s a new packaging program where you package rice, soy, vegetable and nutrition packets. You package them, and then send them to developing countries.

DH: And how did this get started… why do you feel the need to help other people?
IR: Each year my school has a speech contest and this year the topic was “How my passions can change the world” and I chose my passion to be perseverance. Earlier in the year, my family went to a meal packaging service in a local high school and that experience stuck with me. So I’m trying to use my perseverance in this case to persevere as an act of love, to help people who are not as fortunate.

DH: Tell me about some of the other things in your life in which you persevere… school, sports, what else?
IR: In school, I like academics although it gets harder every year. In sports, I play soccer and that takes a lot of perseverance to practice, play games and just get out there every day.

DH: Awesome. So tell me about what kind of a student you are. What do you excel in? What do you like about school? And tell me where you go to school.
IR: I go to Royal Palm Academy in Naples. I like math. Math is my favorite subject. I’m not a good speller so you don’t really have to spell a lot in math.

DH: You obviously have a heart for service, tell me about your vision for the future.
IR: I’d like to grow up and be a doctor, a radiologist preferably, and go out there and do the Doctors Without Borders program. I think that would have a huge impact not only on me but the people around me.

DH: That’s pretty specific. Don’t they need big equipment to do radiology?
IR: Or just generally going out there and helping with simple things like medications, vaccinations and simple regular check-ups.

DH: Sounds like you want to travel.
IR: Yes.

DH: What is it about travel, and where do you want to go? You said they are sending the food packets to Africa or maybe some parts of India?
IR: Or places where it is determined that it is most needed at this time.

DH: Do you have any experience with third world countries?
IR: My family is from Brazil and I figure that’s considered a third world country. You do see some poverty there but nothing like Africa or the Middle East.

DH: So a lot of people will tell you, Isabella, there are people in America who are suffering and they need your help here. They’ll say Why don’t you fix the problems at home first? And then you are going to have the opposing argument saying, “American’s can fend for themselves.”. “We have all the resources we need.” Which side of the argument are you on? IR: I agree that America does need help. There are other programs available like Food For the Poor. But Catholic Relief Services mainly focuses on international aid.

DH: Pretty good answer. That was a trick question. You didn’t fall for the trick. OK. So what else do you do with your life? What position do you play in soccer?
IR: I play center forward.

DH: Do you score a lot of goals?
IR: I think I do. Yes. I don’t know how I compare to other people but I think I’m a good player. We play other Catholic schools like St. Ann’s and St. Elizabeth Seton. Naples Christian Academy is probably our biggest rivel. There are only about 200-250 kids at my school, so we’re a small team.

DH: Where will you go to high school?
IR: Bishop Verot here in Fort Myers.

DH: Are you looking forward to high school?
IR: I’m excited. It will be a big change. I’m looking forward to it. Going from 200 to 800 kids is quite a difference but I think it will be fun.

DH: You’re almost done with school. You’ve got two months and you’ll be ready for high school. We look forward to having you around, and good luck with your food drive. SEE BELOW.
IR: Thank you.

Dedicated to Mary, Because it’s Hard to Argue with Miracles

The Rosary was developed in the Middle Ages to fight a heresy about Jesus, Some were teaching that Jesus was not God from the moment of conception. To counter this, Mary appeared to St. Dominic and gave him the Rosary; it has fifteen mysteries which revolve around the Incarnation.

Starting from the Annunciation – that she would conceive Jesus by the power of The Holy Spirit – these mysteries take us through Jesus’ life as Man and God, to His Suffering, Death, Burial and Resurrection. The last two mysteries, Mary’s Assumption and Coronation, appear to be about Mary, but deeper meditation show that they are about the Body of Christ, the Church, who will someday be assumed into Heaven and be crowned, the Bride of Christ. These events did happen to Our Lady, and she has always been seen since the earliest Christian writings, as the Icon of the Church.

Sadly, many do not realize that they should be meditating on these mysteries as they pray, but when the Rosary was developed, it was the way people learned. In the thirteenth century, you could not go up the street to your local store and buy a Bible. Most people couldn’t read, so the Church used our prayer life as a way of drilling home Truths about the Catholic faith.

If you go through the words of the Hail Mary carefully, you’ll see this prayer was given to fight a heresy about Jesus not being God from the moment of conception. Every time a Christian leads someone to Christ, or assists a fellow Christian in the process of sanctification by word, deed, action, or prayer they are playing the role of co-redeemer. That is what it means to be a co-redeemer and indeed a Christian.

Mary played a particular role in the redemption of mankind by bringing Christ into the world. She continues that role by her intercession. St. James wrote that “the prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16) Mary, being righteous, and in the presence of God, and therefore knowing His will, has an intrinsically powerful ministry of intercession.
And this is why it is so important we acknowledge the power and presence of Mary in our lives. She intercedes. She hears our deepest fears like only a mother can. She puts her arms around us and reminds us that love – in this life, or in the hereafter – is the only thing that matters.

Tom and Marge Harrington have dedicated themselves to the person and spirit that exemplify what it means to be a mother – Mary. The couple leads the Rosary in our Parish Monday through Saturday after daily Mass, and their devotion to Mary is the cornerstone of their faith. And as we’re each called to be co-redeemers, this is their way of leading people to Christ. We asked them to share with us the reasons behind this devotion. Here are some of their answers.

Tom: My earliest recollection of the Blessed Mother, as part of my life, occurred on December 7, 1941. I had before that observed my grandmother with beads but I didn’t pay any particular attention to what the beads were. I had been at a movie and in the middle of things they turned the lights on and told us we had to go home because the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn’t know who the Japanese were. I certainly didn’t know where Pearl Harbor was. I was all of five – going on six years old. So I took the bus to my grandmother’s house and when I got there my whole family was there. I thought I was telling them something, but they seemed to know all about it. My grandmother said, “ We have to say the Rosary “ and we started saying the Rosary on that day. From that day in l941 until I left for the seminary, it became a thing that we did every Sunday as a family. This was the Harrington side of the family and I later learned my grandmother, who came from Germany, had been doing the same. And they were always praying to Our Lady of Fatima. They told me about the promises of Fatima. They told me what the Blessed Mother had said at Fatima and that, too, became part of my life until I left for the seminary. In seminary, the Rosary is done in a different setting completely. When I went off to college it stopped for a while. I left college and went to law school in St Louis where I moved in with an elderly woman who had just as much devotion to the Blessed Mother as anyone I had experienced in my life. She got me back to saying the Rosary every day.

DH: Marge, can you tell me about your involvement with the Blessed Mother in your life?

Marge: Yes. I became acquainted with the Blessed Mother very quickly in my young life. My mother loved the piano. We’d have everyone over our house and we would sing Our Lady of Fatima and we would pray the Rosary. And then on Saturdays all the children in the neighborhood would come to our house. She would have the Rosary around noon, and then give us fresh lemonade and fresh baked cookies. Of course they were coming for the cookies and lemonade, but they learned how to say the Rosary. So this happened from the time we were little. We went to a Catholic high school and college where we were saying the Rosary all the time. Everybody had a Rosary on them, and this was just something you did.

DH: So what does it do for you? What do you get out of it?

Marge: For one thing, it gets you out of yourself. You concentrate on the words of the Rosary. And I always have someone that I am asking for, thanking for, or praying for. And I pray for guidance and thanksgiving for those who cannot pray for themselves, or those who don’t know about Mary. She’s the Mother of everything.

DH: How has Mary guided you through being the mother of five children?

Marge: Well, when I learned I would never bear children I wept terribly. Then we prayed and prayed and prayed. We got married and very quickly thereafter learned that I was pregnant. And I prayed to the Blessed Mother, “Oh please let this birth happen.” And we went on to have five living children with a total of eight pregnancies. Mary has guided all of us. Even when they were growing up we would always have the Rosary at our house. And when they were little children, we would hear the night prayers with them kneeling in front of the couch. As they got older it was part of a ritual – get ready for bed and come downstairs for prayers. As they got older, we would bless each child with holy water and spend time with each one in their own room. They all have a devotion to the Blessed Mother today as well. On Friday nights, several families in our neighborhood would get together for a meal and then say the Rosary. Then the kids would all play in the street and the adults would socialize.

DH: And where was this? It sounds like a big Catholic Community.

Marge: Dayton, OH. Yes it was. They had a church but they didn’t have a school when we got there. We moved there because he got a job to practice law.

Tom: The neighborhood we lived in was called “little Vatican City”. What happened was, the archdiocese decided to build high schools in the early ‘60’s and one was built four miles from our house. And around this high school a large percentage of the population was Catholic. We were in a new parish called St Charles, and we both became very active.

DH: Tell me, Marge, how has the vocation of motherhood changed in the eyes of our culture from back then, as you talk about this neighborhood, to now, where a lot of people don’t know their neighbors.

Marge: Who do you count on unless you have good neighbors? Today, a lot of people don’t have the cushion of family and friends. I think it’s a very difficult world today and God bless the people who can still do it and are going to work, mothering and being good wives. It’s very, very difficult. So I give them a lot of credit and I know that the Blessed Mother is right with them, every step of the way. And She will be.

DH: And what advice might you give them?

Marge: You do what you can do, because peace comes from your inner strength – and that is given by the directions of the Holy Spirit. Everything that you want to know, He’s got. Every morning I wake up and pray. An active prayer life is so important. An active prayer life leads to the knowledge of the Holy Spirit. A lot of people have lost that. We don’t have the time! Let’s be honest, our country is driven by money, and the only “news” we see is bad news. Turn off the bad news!

DH: I don’t have children, but it’s really scary if you’re paying attention to the media at all. How are parents supposed to counteract the over-sexualized, hyper-violent messaging that constantly bombards their little young minds?

Marge: That’s a good question, because – I know this sounds old-fashioned – but you really have to watch them. Be with them. Children sort of need to be tethered, and pruned like trees so they grow up tall and strong. When they’re young, the don’t have the deepest roots. Parents, the Church and school are their roots. So if these things are in place, and committed their development, they’ll grow up and eventually have deep roots. When the storms come – and they will come – they will survive them.

DH: I have some friends with kids that are approaching teenage years. It’s always a little scary, no matter how much groundwork has been done, to watch a child go through those changes. What advice would you give the parents… actually, what would you tell the kids, especially girls, about how to live life?
Marge: Be yourself. Don’t try to imitate some movie star. We had this program back in high school called, literally, “Be Yourself”. The nuns came up with this, and it was an all-encompassing program on just… the way to live. Be positive. Be joyful. Listen to God. Don’t talk negatively about others. Mind your own business (unless you see someone getting hurt). These are rules that have been all but forgotten these days.

DH: Really good advice. I’m reading this book right now called Overwhelmed: work, love and play, when no one has the time, and it’s all about how no one has enough time, everyone’s schedule is so packed tight. It’s a book actually written to women, but my sister gave it to me when she was done with it…. Anyway, as I’m reading this book, I’m thinking, is it because people are more self-centered today, which is why we don’t think we have enough time for ourselves? OR, have things really gotten busier in our world and are people spread so thin they can’t focus on things that really matter – like family and time with loved ones? How do you see that phenomenon playing out in our world?

Marge: It’s here. You’d think it would be easier with all of the mechanical things we have. But everybody seems to think that they need a whole lot of stuff – and it’s just stuff. You don’t have to have a television. You don’t have to have a computer (or 3). You don’t have to have an iPad. You know, the hippies almost had it right. If you could get rid of all the things out there and then just center on good food, good weather, good health, and then each other… you can see the sun rise in the morning and go down at night. And you can enjoy life instead of all this running here and there, and having this and having that. It’s all nonsense. It wears people out. You don’t need all that stuff.

DH: You have daughters I assume – and if you had 5 sons… God bless you. What have you taught them about motherhood?

Marge: Yes, I have daughters, and they know exactly what it means to be a mother. They are right on track. They have their priorities, they have their families.

DH: So tell me what you think people would gain from dedicating more of their prayer life and attention to the Blessed Mother.

Marge: Everything – if they could concentrate on the holiness and femininity of the Blessed Mother. She just has such a sweet joy pouring out of her. And you just know that she radiates holiness. Like a mother, She is kind. When I think of her, I think of flowers and gentleness, and kindness.

Tom: I don’t want to convey the impression that we, or our family, are perfect . We’re just ordinary people. But when I have gotten off track, I’m 100% certain that the reason I have gotten back on track is because I have a mother guiding me from heaven. I feel mothers have a gentle way with guiding, persuading and improving. Marge has kept us together because we have certainly had rough times. She kept us focused on family, Church and our God. When I was in seminary there was a phrase “Go to Mary”. If you have a problem, go to Mary. Jesus was God in man, and as a man He had an Achilles heel as does every other man – and that was His mother. He can never say no to her. If you go to Mary, your prayers will be answered. It may not be the answer you want, but it will be answered.

The Math of Service

You’ve seen Karen before, even if you couldn’t put the name with the face. If you do know her, then you sort of know ‘the deal’ with Karen. She’s into everything. Not a control freak. Not a micro-manager. She’s more of a delegator. She wasn’t always this way, but when you take a look at all she’s involved in, it doesn’t add up. It adds up to much more than the sum of her efforts. And this is what her actions have taught us over the past seven years. When we live to serve – when we don’t ask too many questions (of God), when we don’t mindlessly self-seek – the sum of our efforts are always greater than the energy it took to create them (okay maybe there was a touch of physics in there).

The Father Bob & Karen Sanders Interview Part 1

The Father Bob & Karen Sanders Interview Part 2

This is how it all started. “You know, you can only play so much tennis, go to so many luncheons, and play so many rounds of golf. When my kids went off to college, I admit, I got bored,” Karen remembers. “I’d always gone to Church regularly and one Sunday, the pastor stood up and started talking about a St. Vincent de Paul Society they were starting. This was also the first time women were invited to join. That perked my ears up right away. I said, ‘I’m in.’”

She and some friends from St Catharine’s in Holmdel, NJ began doing home visits, and out of that sprang the Ministry to the Sick. It was at Bayshore Community Hospital that she began visiting Catholic patients. She started realizing there was a need outside of her skill set. “We didn’t have a pastoral care department, but there was this wonderful old Dominican priest named Father Karol. I used to make him a list of the people that needed communion and he would always say, ‘Now, Karen, you really need to just become a Eucharistic Minister.’ And, you know, I felt so unworthy.” Who wouldn’t? What’s more sacred than handling the Body of Christ, and then delivering it to people in dire straits – people who might very well take It as their last sacrament on Earth?

“I used to hide. He’d come to the hospital, and I’d find another place to be. And then one day, I rounded the corner and there he was, holding his pix. He said, ‘You’re coming with me.’ And after I’d become a Eucharistic Minister, I was all about ministering to the sick – especially with the Eucharist,” Karen recalls.

Before long, people caught on to their good deeds and their little team grew. Karen, the de facto leader, realized that she was stepping into a role that she may not have been perfectly prepared for. She’d heard about a CPE program in a nearby hospital for people looking to become hospital chaplains, and so in the only possible way she could share commonality with Rodney Dangerfield, she went back to school.

“So I studied CPE at a local college and had to appear before a board of the National Association of Catholic Chaplains and be certified. That was definitely a high moment in my life,” Karen remembers. “So I continued at that Parish and started a bereavement program. Time went by and there came to be a position open for Pastoral care at this hospital. There were some other clergy members from other faiths that applied, but I was about to embark on a trip to the Holy Land, so I put my application in and got on the plane. I said ‘God, I’m going to the Holy Land. Let them decide while I’m on this trip,’” Karen laughs.

If she was trying to curry favor with the Almighty during the deliberation process, she might not have picked a better place to vacation… and so it worked. “When I got back, they offered me the position. From day one, I knew the one thing that hospital needed was a chapel. I waited until the time was right, and then I pushed my plea. There was a young mother with six kids – not a lot of money – and she approached me one day. She said ‘We tried to get into your meditation room and none of us would fit.’ I said, okay, now it’s time.”

The president of the hospital told her she could have a chapel if she picked the spot and raised the money. The organizational and logistical efforts to raise the necessary $156,000 could fill its own manual, but needless to say, they got it done. Interesting to note here, if you rewind the tape, Karen responded to a seemingly random set of circumstances that began with an announcement at Mass. She was called and led down a path that guided her to change. She did not fully understand what that change would entail, but she trusted that if her actions were unselfish, loving and honest, God would take care of her and let the fruits of her labor multiply beyond her awareness (or comprehension, for that matter).

Karen was the hospital chaplain at Bayshore Community Hospital on September 11, 2001, and because of that, she was able to respond to, and take part in, the most urgent medical crisis of all time. She sat with the FBI while they interviewed people who entered her hospital after the 9/11 attack. “We lost over 128 people within our community. Everyone had a loved one who had been tragically affected by the attack, including one of our doctors,” Karen remembers. We did memorial service after memorial service, and… just think about our staff who still had to work while their loved ones were out there… just not knowing what was happening. People would go down to the train station and check to see if their loved one’s cars were there. That was the only way to know if they’d been involved.”

After that, her husband had had enough. He came home and said, ‘We’ve lost too many friends. I’m retiring. I choose not to work anymore.’ A year later they came down to Florida. The rest is history.

At this Parish, she’s started the Hospital Ministry to Gulf Coast Hospital, which involved organizing teams of Eucharistic Ministers to visit every Catholic patient, each day – 365 days per year. She founded the Compassionate Services Ministry, which visits the homebound. She helped start the Arimathean, the Funeral Ministry, Bereavement Ministry, the Rosary Making Group, the Prayer Shawl Ministry, and is active in most of the ministries at the Villas Senior Home.

“Sometimes you just need to raise the flag and say ‘This is who we need, are you willing to step forward? Would you like to help out?’” Karen explains. Simple in its brevity. Profound in the fact that when people are ready to be called, a simple call is all it takes.

Karen’s story isn’t ending at St. John XXIII. She is like a rock skipping along a big, flat pond, and every time she touches down, she leaves a ripple of goodness, spreading endlessly in every direction. There’s no telling how lives will be affected when she lands again in the coming months, but we do know a little bit more about the math of service from her being at this Parish. It is not a matter of addition, nor multiplication, nor a problem of exponential growth. When we’re doing the math of service, we’re simply unable to solve for the unknown. Our questions about life may never be answered, but when we’re at the service of others, God plants the seeds of joy within us that make life worth living. The proof lies in the bonds that form between two people, when one is helping another. Karen just taught us a class that lasted 7 years, and now that it’s adjourned, we need to go, and teach the lesson to others.

It’s really happening!

This Sunday, April 27th during and after the 11:15 am Mass, we’ll be holding our Canonization Celebration commemorating John XXIII and John Paul II. Come join in the festivities and listen to Father Bob’s reflection on his encouter with our Holy Father.

Gratitude

To all who served during our Easter Services, thank you. A LOT goes into making the Triduum & Easter so special – namely for those entering the Church. We’d like to acknowledge Catherine Vaughn and her Art & Environment Team. Bob Kirchner and his Choir. Mike Navarro, Marc Bingcang, Vince Knipfing and all other Sacristans involved in the Triduum.

Thank you to Lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, Servers, Ushers, Greeters, Parking Attendants, and everyone who made this Easter Weekend special. Alleluia. Special thanks to Peter Smith, Mike Angellotti, Rob Erp, Stella McCaffery and the gardening committee for making our grounds look so beautiful and welcoming. Thank you to the anonymous donor of the two golf carts – what an amazing gift!

& Welcome!

We warmly welcome the following new members who were initiated into our Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. May Christ always be your focus and may you know the comfort of his love forever. Our new Catholics are: Natalia Amado, Michael Polsinelli, Cuong thi Son, John Willis, Debra Bartha, Jacob Boudreau, Rhonda Crutcher, Donald Lewis, Barbara Martin, Suzie Norfleet, Barbara Sutton, Bill Sutton, and Brad Ward.

Christina Condon was baptized Catholic, and completed the Sacraments of Initiation. Thank you to all the members of our community who helped them on their faith journey; our Catechists: Ginny Whelan, Dan Pieper, Leslie Robertson, Mark Bir, Paul Kielmeyer, Sandy Szymanski, Joanne Macpeek, Margaret McGreevey, Rich Bryne, Deacon Rich Klish, and Pat Nacol. Thank you Jennifer Engelman for all your help keeping us organized and being present whenever needed.

We appreciate and thank Barbara Catineau for her year-long commitment to the RCIA Ministry from Inquiry through to the Easter Vigil.

Thank you to all the members of the Ladies Guild who supplied delicious refreshments on Sunday Morning and Lois Becker and those who helped with the lovely reception after the Easter Vigil. Our DRE Chris Biel, our priests, Frs. Bob, Bernie & Marcin, and to you our parishioners for your prayers and support.

Holy Week Blessings from Our Priests

Thank you to all our helpers during this Holy Week. SO MUCH goes into making this holiday special for everyone – namely those entering the Church. We’d also like to thank Rob Erp, Stella McCaffery and the gardening committee for making our grounds look so beautiful and welcoming. What you do means so much to us!! ALSO, remember next Sunday, April 27th during and after the 11:15 am Mass, we’ll be holding our Canonization Celebration. Please come celebrate this momentous event.

A Journey of Faith, to Love Again

by Damian Hanley

“I came from a family that was very fractured. My parents divorced when I was young, and that experience was very traumatic.”

When you’re a child, you’re being taught lessons all the time – lessons on how to love; lessons on how to hate; and lessons on how to be in the world. Adults forget this fact, which is why so many children are abused – not physically, although this does scar young bodies – but emotionally, children remember every dig, and every cut. And they carry those wounds into adulthood. We all know what it is to suffer, and this is why when Easter comes around, we cannot help ourselves but to think about Christ only 3 days before, and how He was tortured. He must have felt double the pain at the injustice of the event. He came to teach us how to love, and we killed Him. I guess one of the reasons why we celebrate Easter is not simply the fact that He rose, but because out of His suffering we found meaning.

Easter is the perfect time for reflection. When we contemplate the suffering and injustice Christ endured, it puts our own in perspective. But, without trying to compare apples and oran…crucifixion, what it also does is prove to us that no matter how great the suffering, or how extreme the misery, we’re called to use these experiences to inspire other people. We’re called to forgive anyway, and use what we learn about the frailty of humans – and the perfect love of God – and use that to better the lives of others. And that’s what Barbara Pascale did.

“I felt abandoned, but as a survival mechanism, I still held within me that there was a God. I see it now, as just part of the fine honing of the person I was to become. If those things hadn’t happened on the journey, there’s no telling I’d have the appreciation for the role of my faith in how I live my life.”

We’ve all felt alone and abandoned at times, but young Barbara was placed in an orphanage by her father at an age so young that she felt absolutely vulnerable, but old enough to know the implication of his action. How could she have possibly felt loved? How could she have felt worthy of love if her own father – unprovoked by any outside force – gave her up? A novel could be written on each of her experiences in foster care, but suffice it to say, it was no picnic.

“As my family fractured, the foundation of my spiritual life became my grandmother. She was always there for me. When my brothers and I went our separate ways into foster care, I began Hebrew school,” she remembers. “I really think I found God in that school, and I clung to that facet of my faith. In fact, I still have my childhood Torah. I bounced around a little and for a short while lived with my father and stepmother. She was a Protestant and at one point I became a Presbyterian. So I went from being Jewish, then becoming a Presbyterian, and when I went back to live with my mother, I started going to a Catholic church with my stepfather’s relative… And that’s when the call became strongest.”

Despite the path of tumult that had become Barbara’s faith life, she arrived at Catholicism in 1962. So many people turn away from religion, faith and God – as reflected in their behavior – because of the pain they suffer as children. Garden variety godlessness is almost too common in our culture to be called a “disease” or “mental illness”. It’s become a new normal for a world in which people (marketers) are literally buying our attention a second or a mouse-click at a time. But by becoming a Catholic, she was answering a call, and finding her way out of pain by looking deeper into her faith life. Not running from it.

“As a survival mechanism, at times, I held in my heart the idea that there was a God that loved me.” Quite possibly it was the pain she felt in her childhood that became the motive force that would fuel her conversion.

She was going to learn to love again.

“I never lost my faith, but it didn’t come easily either,” remembers Barbara. “You know, back then, there was no formal process for becoming a Catholic – no RCIA. I would meet with my pastor, Father John once or twice a week. We’d read through a Catechism that was written for children because no formal program existed – and we did it together. He challenged me. I challenged him. And all the while, this deep sense of peace began to develop within me. It kept getting deeper, and deeper and deeper.”

Slowly the feelings of abandonment that were so pervasive in her childhood began to lift. She could have – and many do – become a hateful person. She could have held the resentment inside and let it chafe her soul. “It took a long time, but in a way I am grateful for the way my childhood unfolded. Had I not felt all that pain, chances are I wouldn’t be the person I am today.”

And who is that person today? “I’m a person who has a lot of empathy, compassion,”and she’s a person that gives a lot of herself to people with desperate situations. As part of the Emergency Assistance Team, she reminds people that the Church is there for them in the material world as well as the spiritual. She supports her husband’s work as a Knight, and in an effort to empower the truly disenfranchised around us, she’s president of the Friends of Literacy program in the Lee County Library system, because “when I learned to read, it became the thing I turned to most to expand the world around me. I could go anywhere through the written word.”

We see it in every major faith tradition of our time. Possibly the greatest movement in spirituality of the 20th century was Alcoholics Anonymous, and the variety of 12-step spin-offs it bore in its wake. They all work in essentially the same way. People come in broken. They share with others. They learn about their brokenness and seek God. They amend their lives. They become decent human beings – and here’s the kicker – they carry the message and help other people to find the same peace and serenity which they can only describe as a miracle. It works because, built into the program, is the stipulation that they give of themselves so that others can also find God. And yet, we, in our stubbornness and self-centeredness, blow this off as if it were God’s mere suggestion. When we love people unconditionally and do what we can to help them, God takes care of us. In fact, He grants such profound peace and serenity when we use our pain and experience to help others, it’s as if… Jesus was trying to tell us something when He died on the cross. Could it be that simple? Nah. There’s got to be more to it.

Barbara’s journey wasn’t a “competition” of faiths that Catholicism won out. Her journey started with overcoming emotional pain and feelings of abandonment, and has culminated in a place where the only thing that makes sense is to live a life of service. Punch Card Catholics come to Church because – even if they’re just going through the motions – they know the answers are here. They know that the solution to their suffering is in the Gospel, and make no mistake, we are all suffering in one way or another.

We suffer because of our inability to love – to love like God taught us. No matter how many times we fall – or feel abandoned – our faith that God will send us the person to teach us how to love cannot waiver. He will do it. “I have a prayerful way of being, and I don’t know where this journey will lead, but I believe with every fiber of my being, that it will lead me home.” If we don’t learn how to love… if we don’t learn how to fully live in God’s world, we will have missed the meaning of life. No Ferrari, no McMansion, no amount of pleasure will compensate for that. So when we contemplate the meaning of Easter, please think only of the love God has for us, and get busy emulating it. Our suffering is our greatest teacher, because without it, we cannot grow closer to Him. Be grateful for it.

Father Bob Interviews Michael Polsinelli

Although frequently overshadowed by Good Friday and Easter, Palm Sunday is an important part of Jesus’ ministry on its own. Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entrance of Christ into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-9), when palm branches were placed in His path, and yet, despite the significance of Palm Sunday, we know what is to come in just a short time, that that same crowd would cry for Jesus’ crucifixion, and for a criminal to be released in His place.

This coming Easter Vigil, our RCIA candidates will receive their sacraments and enter the Church. One such candidate, Michael Polsinelli, has a slightly different perspective on the process. Read and see how he’s preparing himself for Easter, and then do the same for yourself.

Father Bob: Michael, tell us about yourself.
Michael Polsinelli: Well, I’m 10 years old and I go to Sunshine Elementary. I’m in 4th grade and I play baseball for The Buckeyes in a league at Buckingham Park. I play first base.

FB: That’s great! So tell me – most children are baptized right after birth, but you weren’t. And now, at 10 years old, you’ve chosen to enter the church and receive your sacraments through the RCIA program. This is a major thing. How did you come to that decision?
MP: We’d stopped going to church for a while, but when we found this Church, it felt right. I really like coming here. My family and I started talking more and more about joining and part of that conversation had to do with my sacraments – you know, how I didn’t have them.

FB: So what does this all mean to you? How are you processing this experience as a 10-year old?
MP: When I learned about the sacrament in the adapted RCIA program, Baptism being the washing away of original sin, I realized how important that is… And then Eucharist being an act of thanksgiving. That’s also a very important concept for me.

FB: So we know there’s always a story behind people’s Confirmation name. What name did you choose and tell me a little bit about how that choice came about?
MP: I chose St. Paul because my father chose St. Michael for my name, his name is Paul, and I like his writings.

FB: He was a great writer. He wrote more letters than probably anyone else in the Bible – the Phillipians; the Galatians; the Corinthians. I mean he wrote to a lot of people all over the world and many consider him to be the greatest missionary in the Church. But, you know, he died for his work, and his belief in Christ – which has me thinking. You probably see a lot of disturbing things on the news, or maybe even in school, that challenges your faith in a deep way. How do you give witness to the Gospel and your faith as a young 10-year old boy?
MP: I think the answer to everything is in the Gospel. It’s really “The Truth” and we should refer to it when we’re forced to make hard decisions.

FB: Are you ever challenged by other kids with regard to your faith? Do you find it hard to play a competitive sport, like baseball, and still stay true to your faith?
MP: It can be.

FB: So what does your life look like in 20 years? Is God leading you in any particular direction?
MP: Well I’d love to play a professional sport, but if that doesn’t work out… I think I could see myself as a teacher, or maybe become a mechanic like my father.

FB: That’s fantastic. And so the time is coming soon when you’ll be received into the Church. How do you feel about that? You excited?
MP: Oh yeah. I’ve being coming up for a blessing all this time, and now I’ll be able to receive the Eucharist – I will really feel a part of the Church.

FB: And you will be – that’s really wonderful. Tell me about that medal you’re wearing around your neck.
MP: Oh, my Aunt Nancy got this for me in Washington DC. It’s a St. Michael medal.

FB: Do you know that he’s the great protector saint? He will always protect you. So we’re sitting here at the baptismal font, and this is where we’re going to baptize you on Holy Saturday night. We’re going to dip you in here and put this Chrism oil on your head. It’s got a beautiful scent. It signifies that wherever you go in life, you bring the fragrance of Christ with you. So you are going to be an apostle of the Lord. It’s going to be a great evening… it’s a little long, about two and a half hours. But we’re going to have great music, and great company. I hear you like some liturgical music too, is that right?
MP: I really like that song Sing to the Mountains. It’s very uplifting. So much of Church music is slow, and I remember once I requested it to the music director after the final blessing one week, and they actually played it.

FB: Yes, that song is as old as I’ve been a priest. I remember singing it in seminary… It’s been around a while. And you know, on that note, if the pro sports, and the teaching or being a mechanic doesn’t work out, I’d love for you to think about becoming a priest. We could use more guys like you. You’d be great…. And priests are teachers too! We try to exemplify the life of St. Paul. So good luck in all you do, good luck in your baseball game tonight, and many blessings on your journey of faith.

Anointing of the Sick Explained

If I asked you to close your eyes and picture the Sacrament of Anointing, what image would come to your mind? I think many Catholics would picture a priest standing at a hospital bedside next to an unresponsive person, or someone whose mortality has become inevitable. Although the sacrament began as a ritual of healing, over time the emphasis shifted to the forgiveness of sins on the deathbed, when such forgiveness would be the final preparation for heaven. The Second Vatican Council, in 1959, returned the original meaning to the sacrament by emphasizing that it is not only for those who are at the point of death, but for anyone who is seriously ill, including mental or spiritual illness. It also helped move the Anointing away from a private service and back toward a community-based one.

Often, people call us at the very last minute. And they have the impression that we’re magicians, or that we can perform a sort of, last minute miracle,” shares Father Bob. “I really want people to understand the real meaning and purpose of the sacrament. Also, when people treat it like a ‘magic trick’, it erodes the dignity of the faith, and obscures the duty of the priest.”

Today we are all aware that tensions, fear and anxiety about the future affect not only our mind, but our body as well. These illnesses can be serious. They can move us to ask for the healing touch of Christ in the Sacrament of Anointing. Persons with the disease of alcoholism or persons suffering from other addictions can be anointed. So can those who suffer from various mental disorders. The anxiety before exploratory surgery is a situation in which Christ’s power can be invoked in the sacrament.

In these cases the person does not have to wait until the illness is so grave that he or she is in the hospital or institutionalized to celebrate the sacrament. Sacraments, after all, are community celebrations. It is preferable to celebrate them in the context of family and parish even before going to the hospital. The sick person has a better opportunity to appreciate the prayers and symbols of the rite when in her or his customary worshiping community.

For Our Healing by Woodene Koenig-Bricker

“It’s just for old people.”
“You can only receive it if you’re really sick with something like cancer.”
“You get it right before you die.”

If you, like these teens, think the Anointing of the Sick is just for the extremely old or the critically ill, or if you assume the only time you can receive it is at the moment of death, you aren’t alone. Most Catholics still think of the sacrament that way.

“I didn’t know anything about it before I received it,” says Bridget, a high school sophomore who was anointed while struggling with anorexia. “I thought it was for older people or people who were dying. I’d never seen a kid get it before.”

While it’s true the Anointing of the Sick is one of the ways the Church helps prepare us for death, it’s much more than that. It’s a celebration of Jesus’ promise that we will have life and have it abundantly. It’s the sign of Christ’s healing presence in the world. And it’s not just for the elderly.

In the letter of James in the Bible, he writes, “Is anyone among you sick? He should summon the presbyters [those who have authority] of the Church, and they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven”.
The words St. James wrote are still true today. The Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is our way of continuing the healing work Jesus began 2,000 years ago.

You might be asking yourself, “Does that mean people who receive the Sacrament of the Sick are really going to get well, even if they have something serious like cancer?” Yes—and no.

While we can say with confidence that healing always occurs during the Anointing of the Sick, it isn’t always the kind of healing we might expect. “At first I thought it would cure me and I was disappointed when I wasn’t cured right away,” says Bridget. “Then it became clearer the healing had to come from within me. The healing wasn’t an immediate recovery. I had to be open; to let things happen. I couldn’t expect something overnight.” Even after we’ve been anointed, God may allow us to continue to be physically ill, but he also gives us his word that healing will take place on one level or another. We may be healed emotionally or spiritually rather than physically. While we often assume getting physically well is the best thing for us, God may know we need to come to a greater awareness of the divine and may choose to heal some area of our spirit or emotions instead of our body.

“I learned if you don’t go looking for healing, it will be revealed in some other way,” Bridget adds.We should also remember the sacrament complements medical treatment; it doesn’t replace it. Just because someone gets better with the help of surgery or modern drugs doesn’t mean the sacrament didn’t play a part in the healing. God uses the skill of doctors and nurses as well as modern medical techniques to restore health.

If all that sounds like so much double-talk, it might help to remember the sacrament isn’t magic. It doesn’t promise that those who receive it will be cured of all physical sickness. It doesn’t promise that someone who is 99 will live another 30 years. What it does promise is that God will heal the broken areas of our life if we approach with faith and humility.
While it isn’t common, immediate physical healing can happen. I know of at least one instance in my own family when medical tests administered after the person was anointed showed no trace of the previous illness. The very real possibility of a physical cure is one reason the Church doesn’t want us to wait until we are at death’s door before asking for the sacrament.

In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the Church says, “As soon as one of the faithful begins to be in danger of death from sickness or old age, the appropriate time to receive this sacrament has certainly already arrived.” In other words, along with appropriate medical treatment, we should give God the opportunity to help cure our serious sickness.

“What happened was that I began to want to change,” says Bridget. “It was something I wasn’t expecting. Before the sacrament, I wasn’t open to letting God in my life. I needed something to put him back in my life. When I received the Sacrament of Anointing, I realized how important he is,” she says.

The Rite of Anointing

Despite its potential for drama, the Anointing of the Sick may be the most low-key of all the sacraments. “After it was all over, I thought, ‘This is it? Now I’m supposed to be healed?”’ says Bridget. “I felt kind of empty after the process, like I was waiting for a flashing light or something.”

Her reaction is common. The first time I saw an anointing, I was surprised at how short and unexciting the ceremony was. All the priest did was say a few prayers and read a Scripture passage. Then he placed his hands on the person’s head and prayed silently. Finally, he took out some holy oil and rubbed a little on the person’s forehead and palms. The whole event took less than 10 minutes.

Those two elements—prayer and anointing with oil—are the essence of the sacrament, the parts that must be performed for it to be valid. What else happens depends on how much time is available, the condition of the patient and individual desire. The priest may distribute Communion to the person being anointed and anyone else who wants to receive. Finally, he may merely end the service with a simple prayer and blessing.

Normally the priest brings everything he needs, but 20 or 30 years ago, most families owned a “sick call set”—a crucifix with a sliding lid which contained a bottle of holy water and candles—so the priest wouldn’t have to gather all the supplies if he were called in the middle of the night.

Since the sacrament requires little in the way of space or materials, it can be administered almost anywhere people need the healing touch of Christ from bedrooms to battlefields, from living rooms to ambulances. Some parishes now offer a communal Anointing once or twice a year, inviting all parishioners who are ill to participate.
“I’m glad I received it,” Bridget says. “Kids worry about their image and don’t like to be known as being religious, but I don’t feel embarrassed to have had the sacrament. I feel really thankful. If priests had the anointing for youth at a youth Mass, maybe more would come. You feel really out of place when everyone who goes up to the altar is 60 years old.”
Jesus, the Healer
The Anointing of the Sick is a sacrament which certainly mirrors the actions of Jesus when he walked the earth, spending much of his time healing the sick. In fact, most of his miracles involved curing some kind of illness. From the beginning of his ministry, his reputation as a healer spread rapidly. At times so many people wanted him to perform miracles of healing, he could hardly get out of the house. Staying inside didn’t help. In his Gospel, Luke tells us about some people who were so anxious to have Jesus cure their paralyzed friend that they cut a hole in the roof of the house and lowered the sick man down to him (see Luke 5:18-19)! Although people made what seem like unreasonable demands on him and his time, we don’t have any record of Jesus turning down someone who came to him for help. When John the Baptist sent his followers to ask Jesus if he were the Messiah, he answered, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the good news proclaimed to them” (Luke 7:22). Jesus showed himself to be the long-awaited Savior by becoming a healer.

After his death and resurrection, Jesus’ disciples continued to heal the sick. In Chapter Three of the Book of Acts, a man who had been crippled from birth asked Peter for some money. Peter said he didn’t have any gold or silver, but he said he would give the crippled man something better—the ability to walk. Then, we are told, Peter helped him up and the newly-cured man began to jump around, praising God (see Acts 3:1-9). While we are sometimes a little skeptical, the early Church took it for granted God would answer prayers for healing.

Church Continues Jesus’ Work

If the whole purpose of the sacrament is to help heal people and continue the work Jesus did when he was on earth, how did it become so linked with death, dying and old age? Why did a sacrament of healing become known as “Extreme Unction” or “Last Rites”?

One reason for the change may be that when medical science was first developing, it was as likely to kill as to cure, so people put off calling a doctor until they were nearly dead and thus had little to lose. The same may have held true for doctors of the soul, with people waiting until the last minutes of life to call for a priest. Today, even though medical practices have improved and people are willing to call a medical doctor, the superstition that Anointing should be the last action before death seems to have stuck.

Another reason Anointing was seen as the last step in life’s journey may be because people began to think of the sacrament as the final chance to reconcile with God before death. Because Anointing of the Sick has the power to forgive sin as well as heal, people waited until they were sure they were dying to ask for it. If possible, a dying person would go to Confession, receive Communion and then receive the Last Rites. If he or she were already so near death that Confession and Communion weren’t possible, then they had the heavenly insurance, so to speak, of receiving forgiveness through the Last Rites.

If physical healing did take place—as it sometimes did—it came as quite a surprise to everyone, including the anointed person who equated the rites with certain death. In some places, in fact, the erroneous teaching arose that if you were physically cured, you would have to remain celibate the rest of your life! With that in mind, it’s not surprising people were reluctant to call the priest too early in an illness.

The difficulty with all this is that while Anointing is a way to have your sins forgiven, it isn’t supposed to take the place of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (Confession). Because Anointing was in danger of becoming just another form of confession at the time of death, Vatican II changed the prayers accompanying the anointing to reemphasize its healing character. The emphasis returned to prayers for recovery of physical, mental or spiritual health.

But lots of Catholics don’t understand the changes.

“In religion class we mostly talked about how it used to be associated with death,” says Bridget. “Now that I’ve received it, I think it ought to be emphasized it’s not just for the dying. It’s for any form of illness—emotional or physical.” If that illness places a person in danger of death, the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick is most appropriate.

Sacrament of Health

Anointing of the Sick is the way we as Catholics call on the healing, restoring power of Jesus when we are at our lowest and most vulnerable. It’s a way we can gain the strength to bear suffering with patience and dignity. And it’s a way of reminding ourselves that no matter what happens in life or death, Jesus will be there beside us and the people we love.
While it isn’t intended to be used for our everyday aches and pains, sniffles and sneezes, it should be requested in those times of serious illness when we need a special sign of God’s love and care.

Cardinal: maintain, yet reinterpret doctrine

VATICAN CITY – In its approach to divorced and civilly remarried Catholics, the Catholic Church needs to find a middle ground that does not destroy or abandon doctrine, but offers a “renewed” interpretation of church teaching in order to help those whose marriages have failed, Cardinal Walter Kasper said. “I propose a path that goes beyond strictness and leniency,” the German cardinal and theologian told Vatican Radio March 10.

Father Bob’s Gospel Reflection, among other things

An approach that avoids the two extremes “isn’t against morality, it isn’t against doctrine, but rather, (is meant) to support a realistic application of doctrine to the current situation of the great majority of people and to contribute to people’s happiness,” he said, speaking in Italian.

The cardinal was referring to a lengthy talk he had given to introduce a Feb. 20-21 discussion by the College of Cardinals on family life. The talk, titled “Gospel of the Family,” was to be published in March in German and Italian by private publishing houses.

In the book’s preface, published March 12 in the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Kasper said the synod in union with Pope Francis would have to decide what steps to take to help families, but Catholic laity must be consulted. “We are all celibate while most of the faithful live the faith in the gospel of the family, in concrete and often difficult situations,” he said.

With such public discussion about the church’s response to Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried, the bishops and pope must say something, he said. “We obviously cannot respond to all the expectations, but if we repeat only the responses that have always been given, it would lead to great disappointment.”

“As witnesses of hope, we cannot allow ourselves to be guided by a hermeneutic of fear,” the cardinal wrote.

In an essay, also published in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Kasper said church leaders must adopt “a renewed pastoral spirituality that leaves behind narrow-minded legalistic considerations and a non-Christian strictness which burdens people with unbearable weight, burdens we clerics don’t want to carry and wouldn’t know how to carry.”

As proponents and defenders of the family, founded on the self-giving of one man and one woman who bring forth new life, the church cannot stand by in “resigned silence,” he said. Marriage and the family are the last defense against a culture that banalizes and commercializes sexuality and reduces the human person and human relationships to what is economically useful.

Cardinal Kasper told Vatican Radio that the responses to a widely distributed Vatican questionnaire about Catholics’ family life — drawn up in preparation for October’s Synod of Bishops on the family — showed “there is a difficulty, an abyss” between church teaching and the actual situation of many people.
“The church has to bridge this abyss,” he said, speaking in English; but that “does not mean pure appeasement policies, but the church must explain in a new way what family and matrimony are in order to help people and at the same time remain faithful to the Gospel.”

The cardinal said a similar process might be seen in how the church developed its current approach to ecumenism.
“There were doctrines of the Holy Office (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) before the (Second Vatican) Council against ecumenism, yet the council found a way not to destroy or negate the doctrine but found ways to interpret it in an adequate way,” he said.

“I ask myself why it could not be possible also with other doctrines,” he said.

He said he wouldn’t call such changes “a revolution, as much as a deepening and a development because the doctrine of the church is a river that develops and also the doctrine of matrimony has developed like this.”

“It’s not about something new as much as a renewal of church practice, which is always necessary and possible,” he said.

The primary purpose of his speech to the cardinals, he said, “was not to speak about divorced and remarried people, but to speak about the Gospel of the family” and to foster “a new, better, more deep understanding of family life” as God intended — built on a faithful, exclusive and lifelong union between one man and one woman.

“I think the majority of young people want stable relationships, want to live in a family… and therefore, the church has to help them,” he said.
“We have to once again strengthen” the sacramental and indissoluble bond of marriage, especially as families today are facing a number of crises, including severe economic difficulties.

The church must also take into account the many situations of Catholics who have failed marriages, he said, adding that “the church has to be close to them, to help, support and encourage them.”

“I maintain the full teaching of the church, but the teaching has to be applied to concrete situations, as Jesus did it and as Pope Francis does very often,” he said.

“The doctrine of the church is not an ideology in the clouds, but God wants to be present, close to his people,” he said.

What Matters on the Mountain is all that Matters

At the request of Father Bob, I’m going to recount the events of a mission trip I went on. I don’t like to share too many personal anecdotes with the couple thousand people that may read this – but in these circumstances – I really think this story needs to be shared. I accompanied 50 volunteers to the Dominican Republic with an organization named Somos Amigos (translation: We are all friends), with the purpose of producing a documentary on the spirit and operations of the organization. This was the second time I’d been into the mountains with Somos, and so I knew what I was walking into. What I wasn’t ready for, was the contrast. I think maybe the first time I went, it was all so new and just the sights and smells were enough to distract me from what was really going in those mountains. What really happens up there, is the superficiality of life as we know it falls away, and we’re left with the only thing that matters: people.

The group flies into Santiago on a half dozen or so different flights and people are greeted at the airport by a man named Frank Brightwell. Frank is the director and sole employee of Somos Amigos. He’s in his early 50’s, sports a shaven head, and is typically donning his boyish smile, a reflection of the outlook he holds on the world. Frank is easily one of the most humble, and genuinely caring people I’ve ever met. He speaks – from what I’m told – a broken, Dominican style of Spanish that he picked up during his 17 years of trips back and forth from the Campo.

“The Campo” is a word they use for the remote region in which Somos Amigo operates, formally called El Naranjito, or The Little Orange. I think it means “The Camp”, and those who reside there are referred to as Campesinos. Most are subsistence farmers, but there are definitely tradesmen in the community… more on that later.

Roughly 17 years ago, Frank was working at an all-boys academy in Washington DC as a college admissions counselor, and part time teacher. Suffice it to say that this academy’s tuition priced it out of the market for all but the top 4% of income earners, and many of the school’s students hadn’t ever experienced, or would ever experience, real poverty. Frank wanted to show these young men how most of the world lived, so he organized a trip to the DR.

They traveled past the paved roads. They traveled past the good dirt roads. They even traveled past the not-so-good dirt roads into the hills of El Naranjito.

“What’s different about Somos Amigos,” Frank shares, “is that from the very beginning, we never came to this community and told them what we were going to do to help them. So many organizations come to teach English, or come to build Churches. We came and asked ‘what do you need?’ We would try to meet that need, and then we would ask again.”

Their first task in the mountains was to bring running water to the homes. So they located a natural aquifer and dug ditches for pipes. They installed a plumbing system and brought fresh water from the ground to the Campesinos’ homes. Then they needed dental care. So they brought dentists. Then they needed general medical care. So they brought doctors. Eventually, they asked for a Church, and so they built a Church.

Over the years, the needs grew and word spread. As word spread, the needs grew even more. As the operation expanded, it became clear that this “thing” was taking on a life of its own. Fundraising took place. Construction took place. And before anyone knew it, they had over 15,000 square feet among three clinics – a dental clinic, a general health clinic, and a women’s health clinic. And their numbers are impressive. In a typical week, they’ll see between 500-600 patients. The volunteers work long days – as in 12 hours with no breaks – and by the end of the week, everyone is exhausted.. and yet somehow, we are all filled with something like energy, but better.

The logistics of running three clinics 70 kilometers outside of a city, in a 3rd world country is impressive, but that’s only half of it. What happens in the mountains is magic. Don’t be mistaken. The Campesinos live very hard lives of manual labor, exposure to the elements, untreated medical conditions, and the like. They don’t have iPods. They don’t have Netflix. They don’t have Cadillacs. They have people… and relationships. And after you live with them for a week, and you watch them live, you realize that we are not living The Good Life. They are. In fact, the race isn’t even close.

Here’s an example. I met a man named Percio (he was one of few that spoke English so I really clung to him). Percio moved to New York City when he was 20 years old. He came from El Naranjito, but he spent most of his time in the city – Santiago – before he made his way to the states. At 41, he’s back – to stay.

“When I lived in New York, I lived in a big apartment building… I didn’t know the people living next door to me. Even if we saw each other in the halls, nothing,” he recalls, dismayed. “I worked for a big company that got bought out. The new owners ended up laying a ton of a people off and started selling off the assets of the company just to turn a profit on the sale. I couldn’t understand that.” Percio is visibly upset when he tells me this story.

“Back home, here, in the Campo, I go 5 miles over those mountains and I know every single person that lives there. When someone is sick, we go visit them and spend the day with them. We bring them food. If someone’s family is struggling, we give them work or whatever they need. If someone has a child, we visit them and meet the baby. We all know each other up here. We don’t have a lot, but we enjoy life,” Percio explains.

It’s a cliché we hear repeated in a hundred different ways by a thousand different mediums. We go to a job we hate, work with people we can’t stand, to pay for a house and a lifestyle we can’t afford, so we can drive our brand new car to the job we hate. And repeat. Okay, not all of us feel this way, but you get the idea.

If all our “things” were taken from us – if we were to suddenly find ourselves without – what would really matter? And of course, the answer is people. What matters are the relationships we have with other people.

What happens when the Somos Amigos volunteers venture into the mountains is something like magic. You’re not only stripped of your iPhone and air conditioning when you get on the rickety old bus to the top of the hill. You leave your ego. You leave your self-centered fears. You leave the traffic jams and the PTA meetings and all the little things that grind on your nerves. And when you’re totally focused on helping other people for a week – you know, the thing that God wants most from us – you end up leaving a lot of your character flaws at the bottom of the mountain too.

As a volunteer named Patrick articulated, “Up here, I’m the version of myself that I think most closely resembles what God wants me to be.” And that really is the magic of the mountains. The crazy part is – we all know this stuff!

We know what happens when we get outside of ourselves and do something for another person. We know that feeling when we’re being altruistic. When we put a smile on someone’s face – when we take away another’s pain – and when we’re there to listen to a friend in a time of grave need – we reap the spiritual benefits of these action, and yet… And yet the world gets in our way.
We have to get the kids to soccer practice on time, so, of course we cut that guy off. And that guy looked like my sister’s ex-boyfriend and he was a dirtbag, and so that guy’s probably one too. And there’s no time to eat so we’re going through the drive-thr… and now who’s calling me? What does she want??!!! Oh, it’s my neighbor telling me that the guy from down the street got picked up by the cops yesterday and we were right to suspect him of whatever absurd personality disorder that Oprah was hocking this week…

If your inner monologue sounds anything like this, you know that getting caught up in the thick of thin things is the most passive and justified way we cut ourselves off from God’s love. If spending time in the mountains taught me anything, it was that relationships are all that matter in the physical world. Because it’s not a matter of ‘if’…. One day, everything worldly will be taken from us, and we go to meet our Judge, we better all be friends.

Always dynamic, eccentric, Our New Music Man

Some of the 20th century’s greatest eccentrics were musicians. That is no surprise, given the link which psychologists long ago suggested exists between creative thinking and “abnormal” behavior, and which has been confirmed by recent neurological research locating both activities within the same area of the brain. We’re not saying our new Music Director – Bob Kirchner’s behavior is abnormal, but he does have a dynamic past that has taken him through an array of experiences only a musician could have. We heard about it during past interviews with our resident “keymaster”, and Bob now continues the tradition.

Other musicians’ eccentricities have been well documented, like that of saxophonist John Coltrane. Coltrane had an obsession with lederhosen. Coltrane bought his first pair on tour in Germany in 1963 and is believed to have acquired over 300 pairs by the time of his death four years later. He regularly threw barbecues at his upstate New York home where he and pianist Alice Coltrane would model their latest purchases to music provided by a local oompah band. Pianist McCoy Tyner and drummer Elvin Jones both quit Coltrane’s “classic quartet” when Coltrane insisted they wear lederhosen on stage. So see, the phenomenon is real! I digress. Let’s just get to the interview.

DH: So did you just move down here to come work for us?
BK: I’ve actually been in Florida for almost 9 years. I was working within the Diocese of St. Petersburg, but when I saw this (position) become available, I had to jump at it and I applied.

DH: So you’ll be leaving your Parish, which was….
BK: I was with St. Vincent de Paul in Holiday, FL. It’s between Newport Richey and Tarpon Springs.

DH: So Tampa area – cool! What’s your life like outside of being a musician?
BK: I enjoy reading… I enjoy travel and my family. I have a tight circle of friends that I keep in touch with. I enjoy watching movies and going to museums – you know, that kind of stuff.

DH: It’s always telling to find out what people read or watch. Tell me about some of your favorite movies or actors, or writers and books.
BK: I don’t have any favorite writers, specifically, but I really like mysteries and drama, things of that nature. I’m not much into sci-fi, although some of it is interesting. You know, I like good acting in movies.

DH: Seen anything good lately?
BK: Not really, but I do know that Son of God is out right now, and I would like to see that. I think it’s out or coming out within the next week or so.

DH: What about kids – you have any?
BK: I do. I have three children and five grandchildren.

DH: Oh good for you! What do they do with their lives?
BK: Well, two of them live in Oregon, and the other lives on Long Island. I also have two brothers and a sister and a host of nieces and nephews, and great nephews and great nieces. I don’t see them that often, but I do travel to New York on occasion. The kids in Oregon are a little harder to see.

DH: Yes, but the Pacific Northwest is such a beautiful area. So you said you like to travel – tell me about some of the more interesting places you’ve been.
BK: Not too long ago I went to Europe and took a cruise to Italy, Greece, Turkey and Malta, and that was wonderful. That was probably the only time I had been to Europe, but I have traveled extensively throughout the United States.

DH: Alright, so I know a lot of musicians live like nomads while they travel around and play – did you ever do that or have your own band?
BK: I had my own band for almost 20 years, and I’ve been out of that life for almost 20 years. We used to play nightclubs and wedding receptions. I used to play cocktail piano, and I’ve even played the organ at basketball games. I’m also a lifelong barbershopper – I’ve sung in barbershop quartets and different choruses – so anything to do with music I really enjoy.

DH: What were you trained on?
BK: Well I played a bunch of different instruments in high school, but I’ve been predominantly trained on piano and organ. I have to say, I’ve had some great mentors in my career.

DH: Just real quick – what other instruments did you play?
BK: Well I played tuba and timpani, and that was part of playing for a marching band when I was a teenager.

DH: Of course. Ok, let’s rewind. How did the quartet make its way into the barbershop? How did that whole thing start?
BK: The origins go back to the barbershops on Main Street, America from years ago. A lot of times men would be hanging out in barbershops years ago with nothing to do, and they found out they could sing, and they’d put harmony to that. I mean, that was really the birth of “barbershop harmony”, and it’s really grown to be a terrific venue. I mean, for men and women, they have competitions all over the country – it’s really great.

DH: What an obscure venue for that to happen! Why not a cobbler or an auto mechanic?
BK: I think it’s because the barbershop was a place where men had to go. You know, men need shaves and haircuts, and other than a bartender, the barber is someone people get comfortable talking to.

DH: I’ve been really comfortable with mine over the past 13 years. So what else do you do with your life? What type of bands do you like? Do you listen to anything we wouldn’t guess – like Taylor Swift or…?
BK: Noooo! Hahah. I’m sort of a traditionalist when it comes to music. I like the big band leaders of yesteryear – you know, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, people like that. I like heavy string orchestras, very romantic stuff like that. I actually like dancing too, and I’m a big fan of Dancing with the Stars – not so much of American Idol. That gets a little old for me. Most people either like it or not. I don’t.

DH: Ha! Me neither. Did you ever get into the 80’s hair bands?
BK: Well back in the 70’s, my band was playing Top 40 rock ‘n roll, along with the high society stuff.

DH: Well give me an example of some groups that you’d cover.
BK: For example, we played the BeeGee’s, Huey Lewis & the News, the Doobie Brothers, and then we also covered 50’s music – the “DooWaps”, and that stuff is really fun.

DH: But you’re no longer in a band, per se?
BK: No, but I do still play cocktail piano. That’s a really good time.

DH: Yeah, a former music director here, Barb Mendillo, used to do that. She was very nomadic in her youth. We find a lot of musicians are very eccentric in that way.
BK: Yes, I’ve been very involved in music from a young age. My mother taught me to sing, and I grew up learning the songs of the liturgy, so it’s been very close to me my whole life.

DH: Well it’s great having you here and we look forward to having you around!
BK: And I look forward to bring the liturgy alive with music!

A Heart for Humanity

As a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian ministry that builds with people in need regardless of race or religion, Habitat for Humanity invites you to get involved in their organization help change a life. They have more than 1,500 local affiliates in the United States and more than 70 national organizations around the world. They’ve helped to build or repair more than 800,000 houses and serve more than 4 million people worldwide. Habitat helps by building or renovating simple, decent houses in partnership with those in need. Last year, a small group of Blessed Pope Parishioners got involved with Habitat on their mission to Biloxi. Things went so well, that they’ve continued the mission on local soil. We made it out to a house in Lehigh Acres and interviewed three of our volunteers and the H4H site supervisor. Bottom line: They want you to get involved. You can find their information in the Narthex this weekend, or in the general announcements every week in the bulletin.

Damian: Tell me about how you started with Habitat?
Gloria Larson: We started on our last trip to Biloxi – on our mission trip – and we were very inspired because they’re such an organized company. When we were up there, we were doing a lot of refurbishing, and we were also working on new homes, but when we came back to Florida, we thought, we really need to continue this good work in our local communities.

DH: And how long does it take you to do a house?
GL: We actually got our group together at the end of the summer (2013), and we’ve been in this house out in Lehigh for about 2 months. This is a remodel, and we’ve been doing a lot of tearing down walls and putting up drywall. Right now, as we speak, we’re doing punchout.

DH: What does that mean? And how did you learn how to do all this stuff? This sounds like “real” construction work.
GL: Well punchout is going around and fixing all the little imperfections throughout the house. It could be caulking or touching up paint… fixing little digs in the wall, that kind of thing.

DH: How’s it been going getting your group mobilized and working?
GL: It’s been really slow, but we don’t have all our northern Parishioners down yet, but we’re optimistic that we’ll have a lot more people to come out and help us.

DH: So why “construction work”? You could be doing anything else, but in the south Florida sun and heat… you choose to do this?
GL: Well, it can be difficult, but we feel like we’re called to serve and when you’re in that position, not everything is going to be pleasant. We also look at the end result. Someone is getting a home… and it’s just a small portion out of our lives to help someone else.

DH: Barb, always a pleasure to speak with you in your many roles within our Parish. How did you get started in this whole thing?
Barb Durkin: You know, we thought, Mississippi doesn’t have the market cornered on need. Let’s do this at home! They have so much work for us to do, and you don’t have to spend a full week, you can spend just a day and still feel really good about what you’re doing.

DH: So what do you like so much about their operation and philosophy?
BD: So with Habitat, the recipients of the homes have to be able to pay it back. They actually do pay a mortgage on these houses. They help people get a leg up, and into a house that they would not normally be able to afford. I believe this is a good way to get people growing in self-sufficiency – and we like that idea.

DH: So do you actually get a chance to meet the people that will one day live in these homes?
BD: Yes, as a matter of fact the last time we were here, during the deconstruction phase of it, the young man who’s to receive this home came by, put his little mask on and started working right alongside us. Everyone that gets a Habitat home has to put in 250 hours of sweat equity, and they also take classes on how to manage funds and how to manage a house. I wish I’d had that before I bought a house myself.

DH: So how much construction experience do you have and what does it take for someone to become a fully qualified volunteer?
BD: Um… I can sweep a floor? I don’t really have construction experience, and that’s the nice thing about Habitat. They’ll find something for you that meets your skills. We put together cabinets and tear down walls. We paint, and if you have experience with power tools, they’ve got that too. There’s something for everybody… and a really good feeling for everybody.
Pat Kowalski, a site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity Lee County, gave me a perspective that someone in the construction business rarely gets to articulate. He offers another point of view on the mission and strengths of the organization.

DH: So what do you get out of this? And tell me how you see the greater mission of Habitat.
PK: Well I’ve been with them for about 2 years now, and this is probably the best environment I’ve ever worked in. I’ve worked for high-end builders, all the way down to production line work, but around here, at the end of the day, you’re a part of someone’s life being changed. I mean, I don’t change lives, God changes them, but I do get to be a part of it. As far as their mission goes, I think Christians are really, really good at mercy, but I don’t think we spend enough time on justice. And I see Habitat as a justice ministry. Instead of feeding the hungry, we’re teaching them how to grow food.

DH: How have you seen it change lives?
PK: Habitat removes people from poverty. It gives them hope. And among the volunteers and the people that benefit, it builds a community. People from all walks of life come together, and had this organization not been here, they would have never met.

DH: How difficult is the process to qualify and be chosen for one of these homes?
PK: It’s a very lengthy and involved process. They need to go to an orientation first, then attend financial classes on budgeting, homeowners’ classes on what to expect about being a homeowner. They learn how to make repairs and maintenance on their own home. They do 250 hours of work on their home to build that pride of ownership….

DH: Okay, so what you’re saying is it ain’t easy. So to sum up, tell me why Habitat “works”?
PK: Habitat works only through volunteers. The mission can only continue to exist through the work of our volunteers. The only way we can have affordable homes, 0% interest on our loans, assume the risk of these loans, is through the work of the volunteers.

As I was leaving the property, I found Gloria’s huband Carl around back cleaning paintbrushes in the car port. I stopped and asked him a few questions:

DH: Have you always done mission work? How did you get involved in this?
Carl Larson: Yes, my wife had been going to Biloxi on various mission trips when we lived in Maryland, so when I retired and we moved down here, I went with her for the past two years. After our last trip in the spring, we decided we need to do something locally. One week every year just isn’t enough. We’ve got so much in life… we’d like to give back some.

DH: Do you have any construction experience? And what would you tell someone who think they wouldn’t be relevant to an organization like this?
CL: In the houses we’ve owned, I’ve always had trouble getting contractors, so I’ve always done painting and drywall, a little bit of plumbing – basic stuff. But they’ll always have something for you to do. There’s no task too small. You know, right now we’re doing punchout at this house and it just has to be done. Anybody can come do this?

DH: Do you get any kind of spiritual benefit from all this?
CL: Haha! Yes, we’re helping people… and I think that’s God’s work.

Three Wise Men

Who you are is God’s gift and who you become is your gift to God. Those who become their best, as God intended, rely on the power of the Holy Spirit working in them, “His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine.” (Ephesians 3:21). They will also have developed the habit of persevering. God wants to sculpt you into something great and your cooperation is required. The journey never ends, as is seen by the commitment to service demonstrated by Ben Zannini, Bill Clark, and Dan Murphy. With 250 years of life between them, their experience can be an example to anyone who thinks they’re too old, too sick or too busy to serve. Father Bob sat down with these gentlemen and found out what it is you get, when you give so much. To see the rest of the interview, scroll down.

Date Nights @ BPJXXIII

March 1, 8, 15, 22 and 29 from 5:10 PM to 6:15 PM
Take time during these short evening programs to remember and acknowledge the special things about your relationship. Work together as a couple to create a unique blueprint for a loving marriage. For more information call Rich and Barb Klish at 239-288-7729 or email Cindy Weigel at cweigel@wi.rr.com Each session will feature a DVD presenation, an opportunity to discuss it, plus snacks and social time. There is no charge, but please pre-register with Rich and Barb Klish (239-288-7729).

Father Bob: So Dan, tell me a little about yourself and about some of the work you do in the Parish.

Dan Murphy: I’m from Syracuse New York, 87 years old, involved in the Homebound Eucharistic Ministry. “We basically deliver the Eucharist to people that are confined to their homes. This started some years ago, and when I was asked to take part in this ministry, my impression was that no one handled the hosts except for the priest! But in the meantime, the Church had changed. People are on the altar handing out Communion. When they asked me to visit the homebound, I thought “O heavens, I can’t be running around with Jesus in my pocket!”

FB: Well, thank God things have changed because there aren’t enough of us to do all this work.

DM: Going back to the 40’s, I was in the hospital for 2 years from an injury in World War II, and never in that 2 years did anyone ever approach me from the Catholic Church. We did go to Mass on Sundays. They’d wheel us down in our beds… I remember the chap beside me in the room had both his legs taken off. And I just think back on that and know that it would have been nice to have someone from the Church visit me.

FB: And the best part about that is, you don’t let resentment or anger get the best of you. You saw an opportunity to make it better and you did. So what are you feeling when you bring Communion? How do the people react to you?

DM: You know, it’s wonderful. I know it pleases God when I spend a little extra time with the people there. I was visiting with a chap at Manor Care, delivering Communion, and I found out he never left his bed, and never left his room. I asked Phil, ‘would you like to say the Rosary?” And when he agreed, I asked if he’d like to say it on the deck, outside. He agreed, and as we were sitting out there, his wife showed up to the home. She was stunned to find out he was outside. She told me he hadn’t been outside since he’d been there. Long story short, he died soon afterward, but before he did, he asked his wife to request that I’d be one of his pallbearers. That really touched me. To know that I had that kind of effect on this gentleman… Just being in ministry has had such an impact on my life…

FB: I think a lot of people need to hear that message. So Ben, tell us a little about yourself. Where are you from?

Ben Zannini: Well I’m originally from Rhode Island, I’m 88 years old and I’ve lived in Florida for the past 12 years.

FB: So you’ve been a member of this Parish ever since its creation, I hear. Tell me a little bit about the ministries you’re involved in.

BZ: I’m involved in the homebound ministry and I’m also a Eucharistic Minister for the 11:15 am Mass, and I have been for some time… Actually, I’ve been a Eucharistic Minister since I was 40 years old, so I’ve been doing this for 48 years!

FB: And you’re doing a great job of it here.

BZ: I can’t really think of a more self-satisfying job. I, as an individual, get no greater pleasure from the privilege of delivering the Lord to His people. It’s beyond my comprehension!

FB: You could be on the golf course right now too, so what drives you to do this ministry?

BZ: Well, I was an ardent golfer for years, but the Good Lord has given me a bad back, so He’s made the decision for me not to golf anymore. But other than that, my health is great. I have nothing to complain about.

FB: So your experience has been overwhelmingly positive?

BZ: I mean, generally yes. But, not long ago when I was doing homebound ministry at Resurrection, I met and became close with a wonderful, wonderful man, and… he was terminal. That was a very upsetting time of my life. He was deeply religious. We would talk together and say the Rosary together, and I’d give him Communion… I would go there every single week. You end up getting very close to these people, and he did eventually pass, but when you dedicate your time and energy to getting to know people in that process of their life, there is something deeply satisfying about it. I’ll never forget him. The satisfaction we both got out of each other’s company was beautiful.

FB: Your stories are inspiring to me, and I want to thank you for doing the work that you do. So last but not least, Bill, tell us a little about yourself.

Bill Clark: Well I’m from New Jersey and I get a lot of kidding about that from the men at the Gospel Forum. But I’ve been here, in Fort Myers, for about 13 years. I’ve been at the Church since it originated. Father Sullivan was looking for Eucharistic Ministers, and my wife and I thought it would be nice, so we got into it. She has since had some health problems and has stopped, but my experience with the homebound ministry has been with her. I take her Communion every Sunday and there’s something different about taking a loved one the Eucharist every Sunday. It has a special spiritual feeling to it.

FB: You know, to me, that’s really touching because it’s the culmination of the sacrament of marriage.

BC: Yes it is… Right now she’s waiting on a lung transplant, and everyone’s praying for it. But I’m the young guy here, I’m only 75. These other guys have a lot more experience on this topic than I do. Ha!

FB: You’re funny. Okay, so gentlemen, tell the parishioners. You’ve all seen so much in the world – so many changes – what would you tell other people in their 70’s or 80’s about getting involved in the Church?

DM: The first thing I’d say is to keep moving! It keeps you alive. And when you offer your time and service to the homebound, you learn so much from them. Their life stories are so diverse. Many of them left the Church and have come back and it’s made all the difference.

FB: And what about the young couples, what advice do you have for them?

BZ: I’d give them the same advice I gave my daughter. When she was just a child her mother died, and when she was 13, I remarried to a wonderful, wonderful woman. At that time though, she’d stopped going to Church, so I had my work cut out for me. The thing is, you can’t force someone to go to Church. So what I did was just to share my experiences, and to share the joy I have felt in coming and being a part of the Church. I think that’s what brought her back to the Church, and now she’s an ardent Churchgoer. Now we have to work on her husband!

FB: Haha! You’ll do it – I’m sure you will.

BC: The simple advice I would give anyone is to just get involved. I was part of the Knights back in New Jersey, and down here I attend the Men’s Gospel Forum. I’ve learned so much about the Gospel I never knew before, and I’m meeting good men that I would have never known… As far as distributing Communion, there’s just a feeling I get inside that’s hard to describe.

FB: Well, you guys, you’re all great witnesses to the faith, and I see you as the Grandfathers of the Church. Thank you for your service, time and dedication to setting an example for generations to come.

A Path Much Less Traveled

Our plans or God’s plans? How much do we all want to control life? We all have the need to feel in control to some degree, and the tendency is believe that our plans – because we know what’s best for us – are in close, if not perfect alignment with God’s. People who humble themselves before God and do the selfless thing always make for great stories. That’s what Jackie Gelardi did. This week I interviewed a woman who answered a call that few people get – adoption as a single mother. Rather than wax poetic on the greater meaning of her choice, we’ll let her tell it.

Come Out to Jason Evert!

The Rest of the Interview

Damian: So tell me what you do with your life.
Jackie: I work as a full time school counselor at St. Francis school, which is three years old to eighth grade. I also have a private practice where I do psychotherapy with people from the community.

DH: Ok, so tell me about this decision. You basically walked into adoption as a single mother. What motivated that decision?
JG: Well when I was married, I was pregnant and we lost the baby. We had tried for a couple years to get pregnant so when we finally did, it was it was just the happiest time – those few months I was pregnant. But we lost the baby and we got divorced shortly after that. I knew I wanted to be a mom. So I thought maybe I will meet somebody with children, and that’s the way I will get to be a mom or, adopt with them or…

DH: Or a hundred different scenarios other than this one.
JG: Right! But a couple years ago I thought, you know what? That special guy can come along and five years from now, ten years from now, I’m not getting any younger if I am going to do something about having a child of my own, I need to do it now. So with the help of Mary Nicks who, sadly, died of cancer last year, I was able to emotionally get the process started. She just kept telling me “Don’t give up! Don’t give up!”

DH: And how does someone even get this process started?
JG: Well, Russia had just closed their doors to adoption, and I’m a single person. I kept asking myself, why would somebody choose me rather than a couple? So I started to look into surrogacy. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure I could afford it. I looked into attorneys and just picked one out of the phone book. She was very up front and asked me why I wouldn’t just consider adoption.

DH: And so what were the reasons?
JG: Well, I’ll get to that. But this attorney, she’d just gotten a call from a young girl who was 6 months pregnant and looking for someone to adopt. She gave me the girl’s number and said, basically, I’m out of it until you’re ready to do something about it. Twenty minutes later the girl called and we spoke for two and a half hours. The three things she wanted for her child were the exact three things I wanted to give a child.
DH: Which were?
JG: She wanted him raised with God in his life. I still get emotional when I think about this conversation. She wanted him to have a big family, and luckily I already have one of those. My parents and my sister, who just had a baby, all live within 15 minutes of each other. And the third thing was for him to have a good education, and to be able to take his education as far as possible.

DH: So I guess working for a Catholic school you’ve killed two birds with one stone already. You had your bases covered it sounds like. So what was the next step?
JG: So we met in a park and just got to know each other. We wanted to see if the connection was there in person like it was over the phone. A few days passed and I called her and asked if she needed anything more from me, or if she had any other questions. She was like “I don’t know if you still feel this way, but I think you’re amazing and I want you to raise my baby.” I was so… I couldn’t believe she’d picked me! I hung up the phone and went running around the school yelling “She picked me! She picked me!”

DH: Ha! That sounds glorious.
JG: Everybody was so excited!

DH: Ok, so tell me about some of your fears, and some of your expectations, about adopting, and having a child that were either met, or unexpectedly unmet?
JG: I didn’t know my body was going to hurt every day. That’s probably the biggest negative. And you don’t get to sleep… now I know what everyone was talking about. If I were to give advice to young people without children, I would say, sleep now while you can. But these are small things compared to the gift I’ve been given.

DH: Did you ever question whether or not you’d be able to “do it”? Or did you just feel like this was God’s plan and it was just going to happen?
JG: I honestly felt like maybe it wasn’t in God’s plan for me to have a baby because nothing was opening up. For years I was just praying for clarity, for the direction that I’d be going. I thought maybe God wanted me to help everyone else’s children (as a counselor) and not have my own. I just wanted my path to be clear.

DH: Yes, uncertainty can be the worst kind of state in which to live.
JG: But from the moment I met his birth mom, it was so clear. I feel like he was created for me from the very start. People always ask if the whole process was stressful, and I know for the birth moms, having children is painful and tough, but from the start, this felt so right!

DH: Yes, and isn’t there a window where the birth mom can change her mind?
JG: In Florida, they have 48 hours after the birth of the baby to change their mind – and in some states it’s as much as 6 months – so that thought was there, but I just had to trust God and let what was going to happen, happen. And if she had changed her mind, I would have given him up without hesitation, because who could blame her? But she made it clear that she wasn’t in the position to raise him… She already had two children, she wasn’t married, and she’d just lost her job when she got pregnant. She waited the six months for the situation to change, but…

DH: So when you came along, you were like an answer to her prayer?
JG: She believes that he was created for me, and that she was the person chosen to carry him for me. I always refer to her as the angel that carried my baby when we’re praying together at night.

DH: That’s an interesting take on the pro-life mission. Right? Just because something (like a baby) isn’t in your plan, that life could be in someone else’s plan. So how has your outlook on life changed as you went from being… not a mother, to being a mother?
JG: It really has changed. I look at the world through his eyes now. Even though I’ve been helping children and working with children for over 20 years, it’s different when you have your own. No matter what comes up, I think about how it’s going to affect him. It’s all about him. now.

A Heart that’s Found a Home | Valentine’s Edition

This would not be the first time Father Bob and I had the privilege of interviewing someone whose grains of sand could potentially be counted. It’s a lesson in psychology. It’s a lesson in spirituality. It’s the closest thing to proof of an afterlife I can reasonably fathom. When someone is given a diagnosis whose likely outcome raises questions of mortality, a sort of math equation begins to take effect in the mind. A person might start thinking to themselves ‘well, self, if this were the last time I might speak to this person, what would I say to them,’ or ‘how much love can I show this person?’ ‘In the amount of time I have left, how much love can I give to the world?’ And then the person might realize – what a silly question – one whose answer could never be known. And so then, the next natural step to take, is to show the absolute most love to each person you encounter, governing nothing, holding nothing back – until the day God calls you home. I’ve seen this phenomenon take place on several occasions and it always makes me question the way in which I treat people with my seemingly unlimited amount of time I have left. And this phenomenon is the exact thing you encounter when you meet Bobbi Gillespie – one of our Villas residents – who only 4 months ago, knew nothing of the cancer in her lungs, nor the tumor accumulating in her brain. But now she knows all about these things, and she knows how to love more fully and live in this world. This is a little part of her story.

“I was never one to step outside the box, or break the rules, but I did,” Bobbi shares with Father Bob. “And at 15, I got pregnant and married, so I was out of my mom’s house at a young age.” The oldest of eight, her daughter was only a year and a half younger than her youngest brother. “So the two of them were very close.”
Bobbi didn’t experience a lot of hardship growing up as a child, but she remembers not having much. “I mean, I was raised in the ghetto, but at the time, we didn’t know it was the ghetto! I didn’t find out until high school,” Bobbi remembers, laughing. “You know, growing up with 8 kids in the house, we just knew we were fed and clothed and that was that.”

“But at 15 when I was pregnant, I became Catholic. I really wanted my daughter to be baptized and raised in the faith.” And so she was.

Life was life for a while and then at 29, her husband unexpectedly died due to childhood diabetes-related complications. “Back then, the doctors gave you 20 years to live from the date of your diagnosis. And that’s exactly what he did.”

“You know, I didn’t even notice it, but at the time my daughter did… For about 5 or 6 years I went into such a deep depression,” she recalls from over three decades past. “I have to admit, for a while, I went a little overboard with the drinking. It was constant. I really fell apart. You starting thinking that crying all the time is normal. Looking back, I wondered why I didn’t see it while it was taking place? I feel like I’d lost the fight in me. I’d just let go…”

How many of us are willing to admit, on camera, in front of an audience of potentially thousands, such frailty? Granted we’re living in a time of greater openness, and yes, in some ways we live in a therapy culture. But what sharing the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves does, is it brings people closer together. It strengthens relationships, and although I know only what I read in scripture (which I barely read), I think this is what God wants from us – better relationships. Bobbi was living in Cape Coral at the time, and working in Fort Myers for a company that built golf course and job site mobile offices. Some of the symptoms of her depression were absolutely debilitating.

“I used to get these panic attacks. I had this fear of driving over bridges – which makes it hard when you’re living in the Cape. I had to have someone drive me to work every single day,” Bobbi recalls. “Luckily the economy tanked in 2007 and they laid a bunch of people off. Ever since then I’ve worked jobs here and there. I started a cleaning company in Indiana when I moved back.”

Most of the time when people are in long term depressive states, there aren’t a lot of outward signs of the depression. It’s sort of a mode of being, not an emotion that can be detected through facial recognition. But when Bobbi shares this part of her life, she does so without shame, and not because she never felt shame over them, but – I think – because she wants people to know that it’s normal and okay to be in the throes of depression. It is nothing to be ashamed of. And that even in the condition that she’s in – the lung cancer, the brain cancer, etc. – we can live lives of joy, vitality and peace. We all think that an aggressive cancer diagnosis is a death sentence, but what we’ve seen from our friends here and in the past, is that a diagnosis becomes permission for a person to finally start living beyond the trappings of ego, beyond the anger that depletes our energy, the manic anxiety and the seemingly endless difficulties that plague our lives.

And what was it that pulled her out of it? “My daughter found me and brought along a big, horse trailer. She knew what was going on. She knew I was hurting,” Bobbi recalls. “She said, Get in mama, we’re goin’ home.’ And I did. We packed up and moved to Bloomfield, IN.”

Bloomfield was supposed to be a short adventure for her, but as it goes, she got settled in, started taking care of their horses and helping them out in the home, and she stayed. Without enough time and space to go into detail here, Bobbi lived life in sort of a nomadic style, jumping around and never really feeling settled. “When you move around a lot, nothing feels like yours. I made my way back to Florida through Brooksville, and then to Punta Gorda where I lived with my sister.”

Bobbi soon discovered that she and her sister were two different people. “There was surely going to be a crime of passion if the two of us didn’t go our separate ways,” Bobbi laughs. Soon after she started looking for yet another place to live, she found the Villas… And she finally has a place to call her own.

“You know this place is great. There’s always something going on. You’re never lonesome… but the Church… Those people are angels – every single one of them,” says Bobbi, in absolute sincerity. “They don’t do something to get paid, or to get a return. I just think of something and they bring it over. They’re so ‘tuned in’.”
You have to imagine Father Bob’s beaming at these comments. Having an actively engaged congregation – one that truly knows how to be Christ to the other – is the crowning achievement of any pastor (and so silently congratulate yourself as you sit here reading this).

So much of our daily lives and choices on how to spend our resources are spent in a sort of “deal-making” mode, where decisions on where to allocate our resources are based on an unseen horizon. These resources – to which I’m referring: resources of time, energy, not so much money, but every shade and nuance of emotion – are in limited supply as they relate to the perceived distance of our life’s horizon. But when the edge of the Earth is within view, people like Bobbi start spending those resources like no tomorrow, because of course, one day soon, the last grain of sand will fall. This all sounds morbid and depressing until you’ve met Bobbi, or our friend Charmaine, or Jason, or Josephina – and you realize that the thing we’re all looking for – knowledge of the meaning of life, answers to the most fundamental questions on how to live in the world – these people have in spades.

Bobbi’s heart has found a home on the south side of our property here, and in every interaction, she’s teaching us how to live with love, compassion and honesty. So on this Valentine’s Day, put aside the superficiality of Hallmark cards, and expensive dinners, and the dozen roses, and share the innermost side of yourself with someone. It’s the easiest and most sincere way to show you love them. Done on a consistent basis, it will build stronger friendship filled with joy and respect, and as we look back at the giant pile of sand in our rear view, we’ll know that we’ve done our best, life was good, and the world is a better place for our having been here.

Marriage: A New Look at the Vocation

A Peek Into the Future

Good golly (Miss Molly), what will the future hold for the Church? With the installation of our new, beloved Pope, we can already see the trajectory of the Church changing (for the better). The pipeline of leadership must always be full. Since 1965, priestly vocations are down about 30% according to a Georgetown University study, and there are over 3,500 Parishes in the US without a resident Pastor! Across the world over the same period of time, the exact number of priests has dropped by 7,492 – but the population has more than doubled. However, after decades of glum trends — fewer priests, fewer parishes — the Catholic Church in the United States has a new statistic to cheer: More men are now enrolled in graduate level seminaries, the main pipeline to the priesthood, than in nearly two decades.

This year’s tally of 3,694 graduate theology students represents a 16 percent increase since 1995 and a 10 percent jump since 2005, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

Seminary directors cite more encouragement from bishops and parishes, the draw of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and the social-justice-minded Pope Francis, and a growing sense that the church is past the corrosive impact of the various scandals that exploded in 2002.
In this diocese, we have two seminarians attending St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach. We like to introduce them to you and show that there are real people coming up through the ranks. One day they could be spreading the Good Word in our Parish, and if they inspire you to walk the path in their footsteps, don’t hesitate make the call (941-484-9543 is the number, by the way, for vocations).

Crawford Bennett

Crawford is 25 years old and was born in Dunedin, Florida. He considers St. Martha’s in Sarasota his home parish. God has always been a part of his life. Crawford has been a Catholic all his life and realized he had a strong calling to the Priesthood while in middle school. He enjoys altar serving because he loves the Liturgy of the Mass. He enjoys reading, language study, and creation. Crawford graduated from St. John Vianney College Seminary in May 2012. He is continuing his seminarian studies by attending St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary and is in his second year of Theology. For him, the most rewarding aspect of becoming a Priest will be helping the People of God and being a “Father” to all.

Lawton Lang

Lawton was born and raised in Sarasota, FL. He was active in the Boy Scouts and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He first felt the call to the priesthood when he was around 12 years old. Lawton enjoys bike riding, fishing, and was an executive chef before entering the seminary. Lawton graduated from St. John Vianney College Seminary in May 2011. He is continuing his seminarian studies by attending St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary and is currently on a Pastoral Year at St. Leo Parish. Lawton received the Ministry of Lector in September 2011. He also received the Ministry of Acolyte this past October. Lawton feels his greatest challenge in becoming a priest will be to proclaim the Word of God to the parishioners. He senses that the most rewarding aspect of being a priest will be the saving of souls through the Eucharist.

Journey of the Suttons

I think, as kids, we have ideas about the plotline our lives are supposed to follow. We go to school for a while. We find jobs or start companies. We fall in love if we’re lucky. We have families. Our families grow up and repeat these steps with mild variation. We may suspect our spiritual lives will take a similar path – smooth and upward. We’ll get a greater understanding of God as we age. Our deepest, most intimate questions about the nature of life and humanity will be answered. We’ll eventually see God as our greatest teacher, ally and friend… but alas, this is not how things work. In fact, for most everyone I know, spirituality is a constant process of course correction, learning, and still more questioning, whose end is nowhere in sight.

People reach spiritual maturity at widely varying ages. I, personally, see a lot of men in their early to mid-60’s, who retire, actually start paying attention to their inner life, commit to service, make new friends, and absolutely come alive in their faith. I know several young couples who were just kind of “doing their thing” before they were married. They get married and only upon having a child of their own, realize there’s another dimension to life, and they invite God into their lives with voracious energy, and start doing “His” thing instead. Life is beautiful in that way, and we always like to hear the stories of the people that come through RCIA – because there always is a story. Most people don’t just wake up one day and decide they want to be Catholic, so I sat down with Barbara & Bill Sutton (mother and son), and tried to figure out where they’re coming from on their journey and what they hope to gain through the process…

Damian: So, Bill, what motivated you to become Catholic at this point in your life?
Bill: You know, my kids were both raised Catholic, and my wife is Catholic, so when we moved to this area of town, it was right around the time the Parish was being established and that first Pastor we had… I can’t remember his name, but he was really a genuine individual.

DH: You mean Father Sullivan?
Bill: Yes, and really, every one we’ve had since him has just been great – and Father Bob is a perfect fit at Blessed Pope (John XXIII).

DH: You’re on a roll! Haha, tell me some other things you like about the Parish.
Bill: The environment in general is very warm and welcoming, the people are very social, and the amount of charity work being done is impressive.

DH: I would agree. Our people are very generous. At charity events throughout the country, our Parishioners are disproportionately represented.
Bill: And it keeps expanding! Just look at the ministry that’s been built up around the Villas. Kathy and I started volunteering over there as soon as it opened. Our Church hasn’t even been open that long.

DH: So Barbara, what’s drawn you to our Parish?
Barbara: Well, I was brought up in the Anglican Church, but my father was Roman Catholic. I was raised in Trinidad in the Caribbean and followed my mother’s religion for the longest time.

DH: Which was… Anglicanism?
Barbara: Yes, but then I got married and moved to America… this is sort of where my adherence to religion fell apart. My husband’s family were members of the Church of Christ – in fact his father was a pastor in the church.

DH: That sounds problematic… the way you’re describing it.
Barbara: He didn’t even recognize other religions. So there was some tension there. For a short while I had to attend that church, but luckily my husband was shipped overseas. At the time Bill was only 9 months old, and my husband was in the Air Force.
Bill: Yes, his thing was communications and electronics. He supported radar sites throughout the world, so he lived in a lot of different places.

DH: So how did you guys get to Fort Myers?
Barbara: My husband moved us here in 1968 and there wasn’t much here, but I started working for Publix, and actually, so did Bill.
Bill: Yeah, Publix was a great company to work for. They’re one of the largest privately owned businesses in the nation.

DH: I bet you could talk all day about the world of grocery retailing. So tell me more about your RCIA journey.
Bill: We had some neighbors that would have dinner with Father Bob pretty regularly, and then we started having him over, and I got to talking to him about the process of becoming Catholic… so it was really just “time”.

DH: What about you, Barbara, how did this all start for you ?
Barbara: You know, I always resented the fact that I was unable to follow my father’s religion growing up. After I retired I moved to Tennessee to be close to my daughter, but then my home burned down – along with 48 other people’s homes – and my son, Bill, said “Oh just move back to Florida already!” So I’ve been down here a while and after getting to know Father Bob, I thought to myself, you know, this is the faith I’ve had all along. This is the faith I had as a child. I needed to become a Catholic.

DH: And so if it’s the faith you had as a child, why wouldn’t you already be a Catholic?
Barbara: Back in those days, children always followed the faith of their mothers – which as I’d mentioned, was the Church of England.

DH: And tell me the difference between Anglicanism and Catholicism?
Barbara: Anglicans were the first faith to break away from the Catholic Church. I think it all comes down to the confessional. Anglicans believe you should just go directly to God.

DH: So have you been to confession yet?
Barbara: Well, I haven’t because I’m in the middle of my schooling.

DH: Could you sneak in? Like, can’t you have one of your friends let you in the back door?
Barbara: Ah-haha! No! That is one thing I’m really looking forward to though.
Bill: In all honesty though, we were all raised with faith. I got my first Bible when I was 5 years old and used to read it daily. Now, as an adult, I go to CatholicPrayer.com and go through their daily readings. So I’m getting myself in the mindset of being “ready” for this process. And praying in the morning really sets the tempo for the day.

DH: Right! Instead of asking forgiveness at the end of the day for all the havoc you’ve caused! Haha. Tell me something you’ve learned about the faith during your journey that you were sort of surprised by.
Bill: I think unless you are educated correctly on the topic, you don’t really know the significance of the presence of the Body & Blood of Christ. Also, I’ve learned through scripture that, what Jesus really did, was invest time in people. And that’s something we can carry into our daily lives. We can very easily help people get through difficulties just by investing time in them.

DH: So what do you think about this new Pope we have?
Barbara: I just love him. I feel like my time has come to join the Church, and he’s such a big part of that.
Bill: He’s a real man of compassion. I think he’s teaching people to return to their humanity.